Brad Treliving says it was too “difficult” to acquire more picks

Does someone want to let new Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brad Treliving know that making "difficult" trades is part of his job, and that if it's too hard to handle, then maybe he should get out of the hot tub? 

The Leafs came into last night's NHL Draft with only three selections available, and they made forward Easton Cowan, forward Hudson Malilnoski, and defenseman Noah Chadwick their newest picks. For Treliving, he admitted that acquiring more draft picks was his first priority, but that it proved to be too hard. 

"We were excited to get Hudson [Malinoski]. We spent a lot of time trying to acquire more picks. Coming in, that was probably our number one priority — to see if we could manufacture some more picks — but it was difficult. Ultimately, nothing happened."

"People have talked for a while about the depth of this draft and the strength of this draft. It was hard to pry any away."

Oh, it was too hard? Then why are you here? 

He then spoke about the "difficulty" of taking action with the number of pending unrestricted free agents.

"The difficulty right now, and I think you see it league-wide: Look at the number of pending UFAs and look at the number of signings. Again, we like our players. Prices are high right now."

"It has to fit. We have a situation to manage. We have some guys higher up the food chain that require contracts. We have to be smart about how we look at things. That is league-wide right now. You are not seeing a lot of signings. We will see what happens over the next 48 hours."

It's a big boy business here, Brad. The rest of us don't get a free pass for not doing our jobs because it's "too difficult". Either he needs make something happen or step aside for someone else who will, because this will be an extremely short honeymoon with the fan base if this is how he operates. 

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