SIMMONS: Leafs can't afford to bring back Marner and Tavares - and that isn't about money

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This is what Brad Treliving cannot do as general manager, no matter who happens to be in charge of the Maple Leafs come summertime.

He cannot bring back both Mitch Marner and John Tavares.

He cannot do that and expect anything real to change with the Leafs.

Tavares has been a Leaf for a productive seven regular seasons, which has been nice and relatively predictable. What has also been predictable: Tavares’ lack of production in the tougher games and the tougher series, especially when the Maple Leafs season has been on the line.

In his seven years, he finished six of those seasons playing relatively healthy hockey. In those six playoff-ending games, defeats to Florida twice, Boston twice, Columbus and Tampa Bay, Tavares managed to accumulate one goal and one assist.

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He scored just once as a player relied upon for offence, a power-play specialist of sorts, a point-a-game guy for most of his career. Just not in the biggest games. Just not when it mattered most.

If the Leafs want to bring Tavares back — and it’s clear this is where he wants to play — then bringing him back as a third-line centre makes some sense, depending on the price. Having Tavares return as the Leafs second-line centre makes zero sense if the goal is pushing this hockey club beyond where it finished this season.

Where the Leafs finished wasn’t nearly as disappointing as how they finished. They played 13 playoff games, the most of the Brendan Shanahan era. The most post-season games played by the franchise in 21 years. So that’s a good number.

The bad number: How they lost. The 6-1 shellacking in Game 7 at home. The 6-1 shellacking in Game 5 at home. Coach Craig Berube insists that structure broke down in both those games, but what really broke down was a willingness to compete.

That isn’t process or design. That’s heart. When the going got tough, the Leafs stopped competing.

On the wall in the interview room where coach Berube held court Tuesday read the words: No grit. No grind. No greatness.

Could have been two more words: No s—.

Or this version: No grit, no grind, no Marner next season.

For nine eye-opening seasons, Marner has been a spectacular regular-season Leaf. It isn’t that he’s not a great talent — he is exceptional. His nine seasons as a Leaf quite comfortably compare to Mats Sundin’s first nine seasons in Toronto. And that’s a Hall of Fame comparison.

But a regular-season comparison.

At playoff time, in the biggest games, sometimes in the largest moments in the largest games, is when you find yourself looking for Marner and squinting to find him. In the nine playoff games that have ended each of Marner’s nine seasons, he has yet to score a goal. Not one of them.

Now, he’s not a goal-scorer by design. He’s a playmaker, an offensive force, an extreme talent with exceptional vision and flair. In the nine games, he did manage two assists.

Two assists in nine season-ending games. No goals and two assists. For a 100-point scorer? Certainly not good enough to pay $13 million or $14 million and hope that next season will be any different from this one or the year before that.

Treliving already investigated the possibility of trading Marner at the deadline when he learned of Mikko Rantanen’s availability in March. Rantanen wound up in Dallas. Marner said no to the trade request, which was his right.

Now Marner will either be dealt away for next to nothing or leave in free agency because he has earned the right to do that. Letting free agents walk isn’t the great loss it used to be. Cap space means almost as much as player compensation.

If Marner and Tavares are both left to leave on July 1, that gives Treliving some $22 million to spend that he otherwise wouldn’t have.

He hasn’t had that kind of freedom to spend since he has been in Toronto.

This may not be a rich free-agent class, but it is a class with some possibilities. You don’t need to buy two $11-million players if you want to replace Marner and Tavares up front. Maybe you can buy three players for that money or possibly four.

Treliving has to investigate where things are with Sam Bennett and the Florida Panthers — Bennett was drafted by Treliving and traded away in the worst deal of the GM’s career. If he’s available in July, the Leafs have to be in the bidding.

The same may be true of Florida veteran defenceman Aaron Ekblad, who tortured the Leafs in Round 2 of the playoffs. If the Leafs could entice Ekblad or Bennett or both to come to Toronto, that would give their roster an entirely different look and feel — which is something that needs to be done for future playoff enhancement.

Bennett is from just outside Toronto. Ekblad, a Windsor kid, played his junior in Barrie. It’s not certain whether the Panthers have the available money to sign either of them again.

Treliving would have to look at Bennett and Ekblad, and depending on who might be available, there are others such as Nik Ehlers and Brock Boeser in free agency.

For lesser money, you might look at a Patrick Kane or a Brad Marchand, either of whom could be a more expensive, more versatile version of the likely retiring Max Pacioretty.

Treliving has a month to figure all this out.

The Leafs have had nine years of Marner, seven years of Tavares and no playoff breakthroughs. They can’t go back to this well anymore.

There has been no grit, no grind and no greatness for too many seasons already.

ssimmons@postmedia.com

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