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If you’re thinking Brad Treliving’s work at the National Hockey League trade deadline was underwhelming — and it was — you might keep something in mind.

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It’s the Maple Leafs core, the one that has been in place for years, that will drive Toronto to whatever success it’s going to have in the Stanley Cup playoffs. 

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Auston Matthews is on pace for 70 goals. Mitch Marner has a good shot at finishing with 100 points for the first time in the NHL. William Nylander leads the Leafs in scoring and is 16 points shy of his first-100 point NHL season. 

“I think there’s great potential for our group,” Treliving said on Friday at the team’s Bay Street offices, not long after getting though his first trade deadline as Leafs general manager. “Our top guys are having good years. They’re elite players. We want that to continue. We’ve got work to do here in the next 20 games to get us where we want to get to in terms of qualifying (for the playoffs), but it’s all about building.

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“As good as years as they’re having individually, their mindset is all about the collective group and making sure that our game is at the point that it needs to be at this time of the year.

“I really believe in our group. Now that belief, we’ve got to turn it into getting the job done.”

One could look at Treliving’s moves in a couple of ways. In adding brawny defencemen Joel Edmundson and Ilya Lyubushkin, he reshaped the blue-line corps to a degree. With the acquisition of centre Connor Dewar, he added a depth piece to the Leafs’ bottom-six at forward. 

With all due respect to the new Leafs, however, none fall into game-changer territory. The players in that category were already here. And one of the questions remains — do the Leafs have enough as a whole to beat the Boston Bruins or the Florida Panthers in the first round, never mind advancing through three rounds of the playoffs and into the Cup final?

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With the trade dust settled, no one, including Treliving, can say for sure.

A major change would have been welcomed on defence. That didn’t happen.

“It’s going to continue to be a work in progress,” Treliving said of his defence corps, falling back on a line he has used several times in the past. “We’ve talked at length of trying to improve ourselves on the right side. We’re excited to get Joel. He’s a big, long rangy defenceman. He adds physicality, he adds experience. With him and Boosh, we’ve added some size and bite on the back end.

“Now, we’ve got to do it by committee. We’ve got a number of guys back there, how it all fits with pairs and partners, we’ve got some options.”

Treliving said the club hopes to sign 6-foot-6 defenceman Cade Webber, acquired from Carolina, once the latter’s season ends at Boston University. The assumption would be that Webber gets an initial look with the Toronto Marlies if Toronto gets him under contract.

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The Leafs might have made a bigger splash, but Treliving had no interest parting with prospects Easton Cowan or Fraser Minten. And he had no appetite for dealing the Leafs’ 2024 first-round pick for short-term gain, i.e., a rental.

“We have some good young players and we have to continue to add to that,” Treliving said. “It’s good to have that (first-round) asset.

“You look at the year Fraser Minten is having, you look at goalie Dennis Hildeby developing … certainly Easton has had heck of a year and he’s a heck of a player and there was no thought of moving Easton.”

When the Leafs hit the ice in Montreal on Saturday to play the Canadiens, they will have 19 games remaining in the regular season. There’s time to get better, sure, but that improvement will be dictated by the core group, and that was never going to change. 

“A lot of the answers are going to come from the guys that are in the room,” Treliving said. “That’s the reality of the situation. We’ve got a group that’s driven, we’ve got a group that’s hungry.”

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