Leafs GM Brad Treliving provides puzzling remarks regarding Marner, Tavares

Treliving spoke with the media in Toronto on Monday, via a Zoom call from his hotel in Las Vegas, amid day one of the free agency festivities. The Leafs GM fielded questions about all of the team's UFA signings and more, but when it came time to discuss Marner and Tavares, the team's general manager's responses to these questions left a lot to be desired.

On Marner, after doubling down on previous comments about Mitch being a star and how lucky the team is to have a player like that in the organization, Treliving told reporters "we're not going to address it, there's nothing to update there."

On Tavares, the sentiment was the same, with Treliving announcing, "I'm not going to get into any contract discussions we may or may not be having."

Both Marner and Tavares became eligible to sign extensions on Monday. While there's still a full summer and a full season ahead for each player, the questions from the fanbase and the media remain firmly focused on the pair of Leafs stars, with everyone curious about whether extensions are on the horizon or if there's going to be a boat load of money freeing up prior to the next free agent frenzy.

Treliving may simply be tired of talking about either player here, but perhaps his silence is telling. Could it be that Treliving is attempting to move one of them this summer and doesn't want to risk rocking the boat before he has a quality offer he can bring to them?

Obviously, nobody expects Treliving to let the cat out of the bag entirely on the first day of free agency 2024, but at least SOME response to the quieries about two of the team's biggest names would have been nice.

Both players have full no-movement clauses built into their contracts, so for the moment, they hold all the cards.