Sam Lafferty Traded/Martin Jones on Waivers

 

From The Leafs Nation

First things first Happy Canadian Thanksgiving to all my readers. Here we are with the Leafs who finished the preseason last night and now begin preparing for the new season. Toronto decided to make a quick trade with the Vancouver Canucks. Toronto as you can see by the headline send Sam Lafferty to the Canucks and in return the Leafs receive a 5th-round draft pick in 2024. This trade was done simply for the cap relief because this frees up 1.15 million dollars on the Leafs cap. According to Cap Friendly, the Leafs are still approximately 1.7 million over the cap, and as I am writing this the Leafs have placed goalie Martin Jones on Waivers freeing up another $875,000.

 

Lafferty appeared in 19 games for Toronto after joining them via trade at last year's deadline and in those 19 appearances, Sam collected 6 points and then followed that up with two points in 9 playoff games. Vancouver won’t get a lot of production from Sam, but they will get some grit and sandpaper in their lineup because Lafferty likes to play with a physical edge and isn’t afraid to go into those dirty areas and work hard for his team.

 

Martin Jones was signed in the offseason by Toronto as a depth signing, it should come as no surprise that Jones would be the goalie placed on Waivers. That’s not to say he was bad in his handful of preseason appearances let's face it he was great but Ilya Samsonov and Woll will be the goalie duo this season. Woll appeared in 7 regular season games finishing with a record of 6-1. He would also appear in 4 playoff games starting in a few of them once Samsonov went down with an injury. Woll showed in his time split between the Marlies and Leafs that the potential was there for him to take the next step and be an NHL backup. I know there are going to be Leafs fans who think Martin Jones should be the backup simply because of his NHL experience and that’s a fair thought but if Joe Woll was placed on Waivers today, he would be claimed instantly simply because he is young and has plenty of upside to his game. Toronto simply couldn’t have risked losing a high-end prospect. For now, all we fans can do is hope that Jones somehow slips through the Waiver wire because he would be a great piece of depth on the goalie chart but I think it’s a foregone conclusion that he gets claimed and I think we can look within the division and it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if the Tampa Bay Lightning claim Jones because Andre Vasilevskiy will miss the first two months of this upcoming season after having back surgery.

From Sportsnet

 

That’s all for this one thanks as always for reading I can’t wait for opening night.