Brendan Shanahan and the Toronto Maple Leafs are in the same position as everyone else – they don’t know what’s going to happen as the COVID-19 situation evolves, but they’re staying ready.

The Leafs team president joined TSN’s James Duthie via Skype Thursday afternoon and touched on how he and everyone else in the organization are staying ready amid all the uncertainty. One thing the team is focused on? Getting stronger.

“I talked to one of our players yesterday and their message to each other as players is to use this time right now for strength gains. What was normally their typical summer and typical schedule might not be their normal typical schedules so they all want to get back, we all want to get back but I think that what they’re doing right now is the right approach which is to just train, take care of your families, take care of yourself, stay home, be safe, be socially responsible and just be ready,” Shanahan said.

“They want to remain hopeful that hockey is coming back at some point. They know that it will look different, that whether we’re finishing some portion of this season and playoffs or just playoffs or whether we’re just moving on to next season, they just want to be ready for whatever comes their way because those decisions haven’t been made and they can’t be made that this time.”

Shanahan said most players have gone back to where they spend their summers since there tends to be infrastructure in place to support them.

“Their places in the off-season are usually the places where they are best set up not only to have the support from their families, but also to train and stay ready. So we travel so much during the season, for many of the guys that come to Toronto and they have a condo, they use it to sleep and to get away in between games," he said.

As for Shanahan on a personal level, he said he’s trying to make the best of a bad situation like everyone else.

“We try to get out maybe once a day, go for a walk or get a little bit of exercise in. You know I saw something about that on the internet which I thought was sort of humorous that it takes a quarantine before we all want to get outside and get back into shape.”

“[I would also like to take this time] to just thank and say how inspired I am by the frontline workers and healthcare workers and first responders and the people who are running and keeping open the essential businesses to keep our society feeling as normal as we possibly can in a time like this."