TORONTO — The loss of Mitch Marner to free agency has reached the stage of acceptance in Toronto.

So, the immediate issue — with NHL draft weekend wheeling and dealing already underway and the UFA market set to open in five days — for Brad Treliving’s Maple Leafs is how to replace a 100-point Selke candidate in his prime with no obvious players of Marner’s calibre available.

“There’s not a Mitch Marner tree that you go to and just replace him,” the general manager said Thursday inside the Leafs’ Etobicoke dressing room, where Marner’s gear still fills his stall. 

“You’re trying to make your team better, and you’ve got the potential there to lose a really good player. So, lots of challenges. But we try to use those as opportunities as well, right?”

An opportunity to accommodate the forthcoming raise for pending RFA Matthew Knies and reward the power forward for his breakout 29-goal, 58-point sophomore campaign.

An opportunity to bring back centre John Tavares, who scored more goals in 2024-25 (38) than any other player heading toward unrestricted free agency.

And an opportunity to consider raises for depth forwards Steven Lorentz, Max Pacioretty, Nick Robertson, and Pontus Holmberg before their contracts also expire next week.

As for the opportunity to salvage at least some trade return for Marner’s signing rights, Treliving sounds less than optimistic, knowing that the winger’s agent, Darren Ferris, plans to wait until his client’s Leafs contract expires before meeting with interested teams.

“We’ll see how everything goes,” Treliving said.

With few centres available in free agency, Treliving and Tavares’s agent, Pat Brisson, are working to close the wide gap on term and dollars of the sides’ initial proposals.

Treliving describes those negotiations as “positive” and is hopeful that an extension will be agreed upon before July 1.

“We both expressed a shared outcome, which is John wants to stay, and we want to keep John,” Treliving said.

“My hope is, until proven otherwise, that we’ll have a good outcome there.”

The outcome for Knies will likely come later, considering the only pressure point is the vague threat of the player signing an offer sheet should he remain unsigned into July.

“That’s not anything you can operate in fear with, but you have to do proper business,” Treliving said. “So, we’re very hopeful that it’ll get to a good conclusion. When that is, time will tell.”

Time will also reveal how exactly Treliving patches the Marner-sized hole in his forward corps, how he finds the bodies to pitch in on the power play, penalty kill, and with top-line scoring to stretch the NHL’s longest playoff streak into a 10th season.

The GM kicked tires on both J.J. Peterka and Mason Marchment, two quality forwards who were recently traded to Utah and Seattle, respectively. And his interest in Florida’s pending UFAs, Sam Bennett and Brad Marchand, is well known.

But there is a chance both Panthers stars stay put.

In order to complete his roster, Treliving is hunting for “competitiveness” and is willing to work the phones deep into summer and trade further from his limited pool of picks and prospects.

“We’re open to everything, right?” Treliving said. “But again, it’s got to make sense. So, we’re not just going to shuffle out a prospect for the sake of a prospect.

“But, yeah, we’re looking at all sorts of scenarios. The end of the day, it’s got to fit — from a roster standpoint, dollar standpoint, and value standpoint.”

• Treliving doesn’t feel all warm and fuzzy knowing that Toronto was the only team to push the Florida Panthers to seven games.

“Whether we lost in five, six, or seven, I don’t think you can get hung up on the number,” he said. “The best team won the Cup, and now we’ve got to find a way to make ourselves better.”

• Of the 17 Maple Leafs signed to NHL contracts for 2025-26, 12 of them have some measure of trade protection built into their deals. Does the organization need to reconsider how easily it hands out such protection?

“You certainly always like to have as much flexibility with a contract as possible. Those are never viewed as something that you just give out for the sake of giving out,” Treliving said.

“But I think they’re easier to look back (skeptically) in retrospect than it is to really dig into why whatever trade protection was given.”

• The Maple Leafs’ first draft pick sits at No. 64, the final choice of Round 2 (via Florida).

Treliving has advised his scouts that he is more likely to trade down for an extra pick than trade up the ladder on Saturday.

• After talking to Pacioretty’s agent, Allan Walsh, Treliving is under the impression that the 36-year-old pending free agent wants another NHL contract.

• Treliving was noncommittal on RFA Robertson’s future as a Maple Leaf.

“Nick’s a good player,” Treliving said. “He’s still a young player, still an evolving player.

“He shoots it in the net, right? And that’s a good skill set to have. So, we’ll see how it all plays out, but we’re early days here. Nick’s a great kid.”

Qualifying offers are due Monday.