Brad Treliving defended the Toronto Maple Leafs’ approach to sports science following criticism the workforce confronted, in a story published Thursday by The Athletic, over a key personnel choice.
In the story, Jeremy Bettle — a former director of sports science and efficiency with the Leafs — criticized the workforce for its choice not to fill the vacant director of excessive efficiency position when Rich Rotenberg left to be a part of the Pittsburgh Penguins final summer season.
The Leafs normal supervisor reached out Thursday morning, as followers and league observers reacted to the story on-line, and stated that the workforce, even when it hasn’t employed somebody with the identical title, has addressed the emptiness via the redistribution of duties and different employees additions.
“You guys get wrapped up in one guy’s fancy title,” Treliving stated. “I don’t get wrapped up in titles. I get wrapped up in people doing the jobs.”
The Athletic requested Treliving and the Maple Leafs for remark a number of instances over three days prior to publishing the unique story, which famous the workforce stated it had bolstered its medical and training staff via different hires this season, including a further assistant energy and conditioning coach, an assistant dietitian and a 3rd assistant athletic therapist, in addition to consultants in psychological well being and psychological efficiency.
Treliving stated Thursday morning that the Leafs “moved somebody in that role” moderately than hiring a substitute on the director stage for Rotenberg, who took over for Bettle in 2019.
Treliving stated Trevor Bartoli was promoted to assistant energy coach and efficiency coordinator from his earlier position as a roving energy and conditioning coach. Treliving stated Bartoli’s duties had expanded to embrace coordinating the schedule and helping within the return-to-play course of for gamers coming back from harm.
Treliving stated the workforce swapped what was an “administrative” position for one which favoured a extra hands-on approach with gamers.
“I would think having more people working on the players is better for it,” he stated. “I would say we’ve got the largest number of people working on players. I haven’t gone out and asked all the other teams, but if we don’t have the largest (staff in the NHL), we’re right there — hands on, working on injuries, working on rehab, doing everything for prevention.
“And you could have a thousand people, people are going to get hurt when you’re playing this many games.”
Asked why the Leafs couldn’t have each a further assistant energy coach and a substitute for Rotenberg, Treliving responded, “We do have both. We’ve got a coordinator that coordinates all that too.”
Leafs gamers have expressed lacking Rotenberg this season.
“Obviously a guy that I miss,” William Nylander instructed reporters in November after seeing Rotenberg when the Leafs confronted the Penguins. “He did a lot of things behind the scenes for the players, making sure they’re feeling good and stuff. He’s for sure missed.”
Treliving stated the Leafs even have a sturdy knowledge division, together with a big group devoted to sports science, such because the monitoring of participant workloads utilizing Catapult know-how.
“We’ve brought in support people underneath” Paul Ayotte, who leads the medical employees. “I think what you’re getting lost in is you see somebody with a title and saying we didn’t replace that position.”
Treliving took concern with Bettle’s rivalry that the dearth of a director-level efficiency place, somebody “with domain knowledge in that impartial position leading the department,” had led to extra accidents.
“You cannot have injury-free seasons the way they’re currently set up,” Bettle stated within the authentic story.
Treliving stated Bettle had not labored for the workforce in years and wasn’t privy to what went on behind the scenes.
“It has nothing to do with the staff,” he stated. “To insinuate that in the article is erroneous. It’s false.”
In the unique story, Bettle conceded, “You never know what’s going on inside a club.”
“I’m not blaming the staff,” Bettle stated. “I’m blaming the structure. It’s just not set up for them not to have injuries.”
Treliving believes the primary trigger for the Leafs’ practically 200 man-games misplaced to harm is the schedule, condensed to squeeze in a break for the Olympics.
He cited leaguewide knowledge, which he stated pointed to a 42 % enhance within the variety of gamers positioned on injured reserve from the interval of Oct. 1, 2025 till Jan. 28, 2026 as in contrast with the identical interval the earlier season.
“It looks like there’s a lot more injuries happening in the league,” Treliving stated. “The schedule plays a factor in it; not that the Maple Leafs have cut their sports science department.”
Treliving stated the Leafs are spending extra money on sports science this season than they did in his two earlier seasons as GM, and that he heard from gamers on a regular basis, saying they’d by no means had higher remedy than with the Leafs.
“We’ve got a plethora of people to handle the needs of the players,” Treliving stated.