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TORONTO — Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brad Treliving says to expect changes in the offseason after another early exit in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

And not just to the roster — but “between the ears,” too.

Using the defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers as an example, Treliving said at a season-ending news conference Thursday that there must be changes in the “DNA” of a team that continues to struggle in big playoff moments despite regular-season success.

“We’ve got to continue to change and evolve our mindset, and we’ve got to find a way to create the team … to be our very best at the most critical moments,” Treliving said.

Toronto finished the regular season in first place in the Atlantic Division and defeated the Ottawa Senators in the first round for just its second playoff series win in the past 20 seasons.

The Leafs looked poised for a breakthrough when they won the first two games of a second-round series against the Panthers and went up 3-1 in Game 3, before handing the momentum back to their opponent and losing in seven games.

Part of the collapse included painful 6-1 losses at home in Games 5 and 7, made more frustrating by a 2-0 win in Game 6 in Florida in what was perhaps the most complete Leafs performance of the season.

“Champions have the ability to be calm and at their very best when it matters the most,” Treliving said. “That is an area we have to improve in.”

Treliving said the Game 7 loss “is going to live with me.”

“I felt really good that morning,” he said. “The vibe around the team … and then we had the result we had.”

Treliving credited Florida, which just eliminated Carolina in five games in the Eastern Conference final to advance to its third straight Stanley Cup Final, with always finding a way to perform in the moments that matter.

“There’s a reason why they’re the champions, there’s a reason why they’re going back again for their third crack at it,” Treliving said. “They’ve set the bar in our division, they’ve set the bar in the league. And that’s what we aspire to.”

The changes have already started in Toronto, with the team declining to renew the contract of president Brendan Shanahan after 11 seasons. Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment president and chief executive officer Keith Pelley said he will not replace Shanahan and instead work more closely with Treliving and head coach Craig Berube.

Under Shanahan, the Leafs rebuilt a struggling team around the “Core 4” forwards of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander and John Tavares.

While the team found individual and regular-season success — the Leafs have advanced to the postseason in each of the past nine seasons and Matthews has won the Hart Trophy as league MVP and three Rocket Richard awards as the top goal scorer — the Leafs have faltered in the postseason.

They are 0-6 in Game 7s over the past eight seasons, with two of those defeats coming on Treliving’s watch. Players seem to struggle under the pressure to deliver for a rabid fan base that has not celebrated a Stanley Cup title since 1967.

Treliving made some changes before the season to try to address that issue, adding stalwart defenseman Chris Tanev and goaltender Anthony Stolarz, who had a fantastic season before being injured in Game 1 of the second round. Berube, a no-nonsense coach who led the St. Louis Blues to a Cup title in 2019, was brought in to replace the popular but ultimately unsuccessful Sheldon Keefe.

The changes this offseason are likely to be more significant, with both Marner and Tavares set to become unrestricted free agents on July 1.

Marner is expected to be one of the top options on the market, and Treliving faces a tough task in re-signing him — even if the Leafs front office believes Marner still fits into the team’s future plans.

Treliving called Marner, who has borne much of the Toronto fan base’s anger at the myriad of playoff failures, a star. And he called himself a “huge John Tavares fan.”

But his short answer when discussing the future of the UFAs: “We’ll see.”

“It’s emotional right now,” Treliving said. “My discussion with Mitch is ‘Let’s all take a step back, let’s all take a deep breath. I need to decompress.”

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L.A.’s Betts day-to-day after stubbing toe in mishap

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L.A.'s Betts day-to-day after stubbing toe in mishap

LOS ANGELES — Mookie Betts stubbed a toe on his left foot during an off-the-field incident and was out of the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ lineup Friday night for the opener of a highly anticipated weekend series against the New York Yankees.

Betts was scheduled to undergo X-rays at Dodger Stadium before first pitch. Until then, the team will hope for the best.

“It’s day-to-day right now,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “So, that’s where we’re at.”

The incident — affecting Betts’ second toe — was believed to occur late Wednesday night, after the Dodgers returned from a six-game road trip through New York and Cleveland. Roberts didn’t find out until Betts called him Friday morning. He was vague on the details.

“I really don’t know,” Roberts said when asked how the injury occurred. “I think it was at home. It’s probably a dresser, nightstand, something like that. It’s just kind of an accident. I think that Mookie will be able to give more context, but that’s kind of from the training staff what I heard. So hopefully, it’s benign, it’s negative. Not sure, but I feel confident saying it’s day-to-day … but putting on a shoe today was difficult for him.”

Betts’ injury isn’t the Dodgers’ most serious at the moment. Late-inning reliever Evan Phillips, who was rehabbing a forearm injury, didn’t feel right playing catch earlier this week and will undergo Tommy John surgery next week, knocking him out for all of 2025 and most of 2026.

Phillips, 30, was released by the Baltimore Orioles in August 2021 and designated for assignment by the Tampa Bay Rays less than two weeks later. The Dodgers picked him up and turned him into a valuable late-game option. From 2022 to 2024, Phillips posted a 2.21 ERA and 0.92 WHIP, saved 44 games and struck out 206 batters in 179 regular-season innings.

But Phillips dealt with arm issues during last year’s postseason run and was left off the team’s World Series roster. He then went on the IL because of a rotator cuff strain in the middle of March, returned a month later, notched seven scoreless appearances, then went back on the IL on May 7 because of what the team called forearm discomfort. Platelet-rich-plasma injections did not take. Phillips never got better.

“As we started getting into it, it wasn’t really responding,” Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes said. “We felt like this could be a possibility, so as he got deeper into the process and it wasn’t really getting better, the decision to do it was pretty much evident with our information.”

The loss of Phillips is coupled with the Dodgers having four other high-leverage relievers on the IL — Brusdar Graterol, Blake Treinen, Kirby Yates and Michael Kopech, all of whom are right-handed.

The Dodgers tried to backfill some of that depth by trading for former All-Star closer Alexis Diaz on Thursday. But Diaz, who struggled so badly this season that the Cincinnati Reds optioned him to Triple-A, will initially work out of the Dodgers’ spring training complex in Glendale, Ariz.

The Dodgers also have three starting pitchers — Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow and Roki Sasaki — recovering from shoulder injuries, with Shohei Ohtani not expected to join the rotation until sometime after the All-Star break.

The lineup, at least, had been healthy. Until now.

Betts, 32, got off to a slow start but was still slashing .254/.338/.405 with 8 home runs and 5 stolen bases while slotting between the hot-hitting Ohtani and Freddie Freeman in the No. 2 spot. More notably, Betts had proven to be a capable major league shortstop after working during the offseason at the position.

But the toe injury could set him back, in much the same way a broken left hand robbed him of nearly two months in 2024.

At this point, Roberts said, “I don’t see it being long term.” But the Dodgers can’t say that definitively yet.

“We need to see the doctors and kind of get a better sense of it,” Gomes said. “It happened pretty recently, so it’ll take some time before we have a better understanding.”

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Jays put Santander on IL with shoulder injury

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Jays put Santander on IL with shoulder injury

TORONTO — The Blue Jays put slugger Anthony Santander on the 10-day injured list Friday because of left shoulder inflammation and recalled outfielder Alan Roden from Triple-A Buffalo.

Santander is batting .179 with six home runs and 18 RBI in 50 games. The veteran switch hitter has missed a handful of games because of left hip and left shoulder soreness over the past three weeks.

Santander signed a $92.5 million, five-year contract with Toronto in January after eight seasons with Baltimore. He hit a career-best 44 home runs for the Orioles last season.

The outfielder had an MRI after Thursday’s 12-0 win over the Athletics, when he was 0 for 2 with two strikeouts and two walks, Blue Jays manager John Schneider said. The team was still determining whether the next steps would include a cortisone injection or rehabilitation, the manager said.

“I think it just got to the point to where it was bothering him,” Schneider said before Friday’s game against the Athletics. “You can’t really put the work that you want to put in volume-wise, and we just think it’s best for him right now.”

Roden rejoins the Blue Jays after batting .178 with one home run and five RBI in 28 games for Toronto earlier this season, his first in the majors. Roden hit .361 with three homers and 12 RBI in 18 games at Buffalo after being sent down May 7.

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Twins reinstate Buxton after 11-game absence

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Twins reinstate Buxton after 11-game absence

SEATTLE — The Minnesota Twins reinstated center fielder Byron Buxton from the seven-day concussion injured list Friday before beginning a three-game series in Seattle, two weeks after he collided with shortstop Carlos Correa in pursuit of a shallow fly ball.

Buxton missed 11 games after the collision, which also sent Correa into the concussion protocol. Correa needed only the minimum seven-day stay on the injured list and missed five games.

To make room for Buxton, outfielder Carson McCusker was sent back to Triple-A St. Paul. Buxton was batting .261 with an .834 OPS and 18 extra-base hits, including 10 homers, before he was hurt. He also had 33 runs, 27 RBIs and 8 steals in his first 41 games.

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