‘We need to win’: Leafs brass hints at change after playoff failure

TORONTO — Keith Pelley was reminded of the first time he watched Liverpool play up close.

The Premier League giant with an illustrious soccer history in both England and Europe are followed by rabid supporters craving success.

The club’s You’ll Never Walk Alone anthem rings around its storied Anfield home at every match.

Pelley saw similar passion from Toronto Maple Leafs fans this spring during a brief foray into the Stanley Cup playoffs.

The Leafs’ short playoff journey once again ended in disappointment, just like most of the past two decades, if they make it at all. The head of the team’s billion-dollar parent company wants to change that.

And change, it appears, could be coming.

“The fans here not only deserve, but demand, a championship,” Pelley, the new president and CEO of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, said Friday.

“There’s no complacency.” Pelley, alongside Leafs president Brendan Shanahan and general manager Brad Treliving, met the media for the first time since taking over the top job at MLSE for an autopsy of an organization that’s fallen painfully short of expectations. A first-round exit at the hands of the Boston Bruins is the latest in a long string of post-season failures.

“We’re not here to sell jerseys, we’re here to win,” Pelley continued. “We’re going to do everything we possibly can to do that.”

That means looking at all options, including potentially breaking up Toronto’s so-called “Core Four” of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander and John Tavares.

“There are times where patience is the suitable call,” said Shanahan, who has one series victory in 10 years at the Leafs’ helm. “However, when you see patterns persist, and the results don’t change, you have to adjust.”

Marner and Tavares, both with full no-movement clauses, have one season remaining on their current contracts and are eligible to sign extensions July 1, but time has clearly run out on the Leafs’ unwavering belief this nucleus can get it done.

“When you go through a season as we have, everything must be on the table,” said Treliving, one year into his tenure after replacing former GM Kyle Dubas. “Everything needs to be looked at. Everything needs to be considered.”

Toronto has made every postseason dating back to 2017, but has advanced just once — last spring when the Leafs bounced the Tampa Bay Lightning — in that time.

The club lost all four winnertake-all games under head coach Sheldon Keefe, fired Thursday after falling on his sword and taking responsibility earlier in the week.

Shanahan, who has seen Toronto lose eight of its nine series in the much-hyped “Shanaplan” era, also put a hand up Friday.

“The accountability is on me,” he said. “Our playoff results have not been good enough. That’s on me. The results that we’ve had in the playoffs, our players know, we know, I know, they’re unacceptable.”