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The Toronto Maple Leafs made moves over the weekend to get down under the 23-man NHL roster limit and the $83.5 million salary cap, and those moves resulted in one trade and keeping a 19-year-old prospect on the roster.
On Sunday, the club announced that they had traded forward Sam Lafferty to the Vancouver Canucks for a 2024 fifth-round pick. The 28-year-old was acquired from the Chicago Blackhawks in February along with defenseman Jake McCabe and played 28 regular season and playoff games for Toronto last season. The deal appears mostly to do with the cap since Lafferty makes $1.15 million in the final year of his contract and if placed on waivers, would have likely been claimed.
Toronto will likely sign Noah Gregor to a one-year deal for the veteran NHL minimum of $775,000 to fill Lafferty’s place on the roster. According to TSN’s Chris Johnston, the Leafs informed 2022 second-rounder Fraser Minten that he will be starting the season in the NHL after an excellent training camp.
Minten will likely slot in as the club's third or fourth-line center and could stay as long as nine games, but the young center will have to continue to excel as he did during the preseason to stay deeper into the regular season.
Fraser Minten finishes the play started by Gregor 🚨 pic.twitter.com/1Pi9Gn5BlH
— Omar (@TicTacTOmar) October 1, 2023
The club also placed defensemen Simon Benoit, Wiliam Lagesson, Maxime Lajoie, forwards Kyle Clifford, Dylan Gambrell, and goalie Martin Jones on waivers, and sent forwards Nick Abruzzese, Max Ellis, Roni Hirvonen, Pontus Holmberg, Nick Robertson, Logan Shaw, Ryan Tverberg, defensemen Topi Niemelà¤, Marshall Rifai, and goalie Dennis Hildeby to the AHL.
There were also updates on their injured players, as goalie Matt Murray underwent successful bilateral hip surgery, with an expected recovery time of 6-8 months, and defenseman Jake Muzzin has been hired as a pro scout. Former Leaf goalie Curtis McElhinney has been hired as the Director of Goaltending Development and former NHLer Chris Bourque has been hired as a College Free Agent scout.
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