Down to the final strokes.
With opening-night rosters due to the National Hockey League on Monday at 5 p.m., the Maple Leafs on Sunday placed goalie Matt Murray and defenceman Marshall Rifai on waivers as general manager Brad Treliving and his right-hand man, assistant GM Brandon Pridham, take the steps necessary to get salary-cap compliant.
It’s never easy to determine which players might get claimed on waivers, but the Leafs should be relatively safe in getting Rifai ($775,000 US) and Murray ($875,000) through. On the chance Murray, who has looked comfortable in coming back from bilateral hip surgery done a year ago, is claimed, the Leafs have Dennis Hildeby waiting in the wings to play and/or back up if one of Joseph Woll or Anthony Stolarz gets injured. Hildeby appears ready for that kind of opportunity.
And though Rifai had a good camp/preseason, depth defencemen are not hard to come by. The Leafs don’t have concerns in that area.
Still expected to come for the Leafs before late Monday afternoon are contracts for forwards Max Pacioretty and Steven Lorentz. Each was in camp on a professional tryout, with the idea that each eventually would be signed.
Pacioretty has the potential to add some secondary scoring, while Lorentz solidified a hold on the left wing on the fourth line.
Treliving would save money in putting defenceman Jani Hakanpaa (knee) and forward Connor Dewar (shoulder) on longterm injured reserve to start the season. Neither is far off from returning, though, and those moves would be temporary fixes.
Whether a trade is made to alleviate some cap stress remains to be seen.
On Sunday afternoon, there still was no official word from the Leafs regarding the immediate future of forward Easton Cowan, though a ticket back to the London Knights of the Ontario Hockey League is expected.
It was not a great day for one former Leaf. Winger Pierre Engvall, who has six years remaining on his contract with an average annual value of $3 million, was put on waivers by the New York Islanders.
SUPPORT FOR ROBBIE
After a bumpy offseason — and that may be putting it lightly, considering his trade request — not only did winger Nick Robertson put the past few months aside, he dominated through the preseason.
No, the five goals Robertson scored don’t count in his career statistics, but it’s a heck of a lot better than being quiet in the past couple of weeks.
The next step is for Robertson to build on it once the fun gets real in Montreal on Wednesday in the regular-season opener against the Canadiens and beyond. The thinking is Robertson will slot in on the Leafs’ third line to start, perhaps with Pontus Holmberg in the middle and Pacioretty on the other side. It’s not top six, but it’s not the fourth line either.
Importantly, captain Auston Matthews and the Leafs witnessed a difference in Robertson’s approach.
“He definitely took a step, and it’s great to see,” Matthews said. “He’s one of the harder workers you’ll see, and he cares so much.
“I just find he’s a little bit more relaxed this year. Sometimes when you want it so bad, it can almost be counterproductive, I believe. He wants it, and he works and he competes, and I feel like he has had a bit of a different attitude this year in a positive way.
“It showed in the games that he’s been playing and the way that he’s been able to produce. That’s great for us as a team to have a guy like that step up.”
SAVVY IMPACT
Of his 207 goals during a 13-year playing career in the NHL, Leafs assistant coach Marc Savard scored 80 on the power play and also had 212 assists with a man advantage.
Toronto was seventh on the power play in 2023-24 at 24%, and though it’s a respectable finish, it marked a drop from the previous season, when it was second at 26%.
And there was the 1-for-21 disaster in the first round last spring against the Boston Bruins, a power-play mark that was a large factor in the Leafs’ seven-game series loss and helped lead to the firing of assistant coach Guy Boucher.
The task for Savard is to get the power play back into position where it’s flirting with tops in the league, if not securing first overall.
With a top unit of Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander, John Tavares and Morgan Rielly, a group that knows each other’s tendencies rather well, the chance for Savard to make an impact is there for the taking.
How does he go about doing that?
“I don’t think he has instilled too many things that have been different from the past and trying to reinvent the wheel,” Tavares said. “(But there are) things that he believes can be different.
“He really wants us to play off our instincts. Our group has played so long together, there’s such a good sense of how we all play and certain things that we do well, how we read off each other. It’s how can we highlight that and benefit off that.”
For coach Craig Berube, there’s no ideal amount of time he wants the first unit on the ice. The preference, of course, would be that the group scores early so Berube doesn’t have to make a decision on the second minute of power plays.
“It’s depending on the game, game to game, what’s going on,” Berube said. “It’s a feel thing for me.”
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