Nothing like a Ryan Reaves trade to get you fired up for the weekend, am I right?
No matter your opinion of Reaves and whether his role is still valued in the NHL, the Leafs brought in a younger, cheaper enforcer in Michael Pezzetta, and the fact that Ryan spent final stretch of the 2024-25 season in the AHL was the telltale sign a move like this was coming. The Leafs gained back some cap space and Henry Thrun seems like an interesting reclamation project, if you can call him that. He’s still young enough that it is more about him finding his pro game than saying he needs to be torn down and rebuilt from scratch.
Anyways, there is more on Thrun and what he brings to the Leafs here, this space is for some of the more abbreviated thoughts on the Leafs/NHL this week.
McKenna makes the smart decision for him
Gavin McKenna’s decision to part ways with the Medicine Hat Tigers and commit to Penn State for his draft season does not mean it is time to panic about the Canadian Hockey League. The fact that McKenna played two full seasons in the CHL should already speak to that, it’s just showing that top prospects might look at different opportunities to show off where they are at, chase different development opportunities, and play against older/bigger competition.
The US National Team Development Program and NCAA didn’t collapse when Auston Matthews chose to play in Switzerland in his draft year and the CHL will do just fine with McKenna making this choice now.
I personally love the CHL and think it is the more exciting hockey product compared to the NCAA but a big part of that comes from the development short comings. So much of the work that goes on in the CHL is still around skill development and introduction to systems, the NCAA largely foregoes the skills work and focuses on systems, for a projected first round pick that wants to be ready for the NHL immediately following the draft, spending more time on practice on systems is a win.
Similarly, the NCAA doesn’t have 16-year olds. The 18-24 age range definitely gives a prospect the chance to face more physically imposing players. Being able to show that there isn’t a drop off in dominance when playing in different situations might not change much in the where McKenna will be drafted, he’ll go first overall regardless, but whatever team wins the lottery will have a bit more confidence in who they are getting.
What McKenna is doing makes sense and yes, it might lead to a trend of other top CHL players going the same route but for most draft eligibles the best course of action is still to light up junior ranks. And with the fact that McKenna has already played two junior seasons and the new agreement allows for players to move back and forth between the CHL and NCAA, the end result should be more players selecting the best path development path for them and the quality of hockey and readiness of prospects improving.
No rush to sign Anthony Stolarz
This summer the Maple Leafs can sign Stolarz to an extension and if they can get their price, why not? There are plenty of recent examples (Knies and Nylander being the two that stick out) that show the best time to re-sign a player is generally about as early in the process as possible but like with most things related to goalies, the rules are slightly different than skaters.
Without question Stolarz put up great numbers for the Leafs last season and he looked like “the guy” in the playoffs before an injury brought that to a close. And that brings us to the most important point on why signing Stolarz early is a bit of a risk.
Stolarz played a career high 34 games for the Leafs last season, still falling seven games short of being a 50/50 tandem participant, and certainly not playing enough that he can be relied on as a number one goaltender. If there is any intention of paying him like that, putting a pin in it until there is more evidence makes sense for the Leafs even if that comes with some additional cost.
There is also the fact that his next contract will take effect when he’s 32 and hockey players, including goaltenders, don’t age like fine wine. Anecdotally you can point to the Marc-Andre Fleurys of the world that have excelled well into their 30s but the Leafs having an exit strategy on Stolarz is the cold reality.
Can he do it again? When Stolarz was in the net he was one of the best in the game statistically. He just doesn’t have a huge body of work that shows he can keep that up and that the numbers will remain strong as the volume of work goes up.
With Woll already under contract for two more seasons after this one, the Leafs might also want to lean into Woll a bit more and see if he can be the guy for them. The idea of a cost controlled starter for the next three seasons would be a huge advantage for the Leafs.
And on the flip side of that, the Leafs are sitting on over $26M of cap space for 2026-27, and Stolarz is the only free agent that would need prioritizing by the Leafs. Toronto can spend a bit more in net and if Stolarz shows he can do meet the Leafs needs again this season, it won’t hurt Toronto to cut him a cheque.
Is Dougie Hamilton next for Toronto?
While much of the talk about what comes next for Toronto has been about finding a top six forward, an encouraging new development is that the Leafs could be looking into a Dougie Hamilton trade.
While Dougie Hamilton is certainly not a forward, it’s very likely that his style of play would potentially have a greater impact on the Leafs offence than pursuing a second rate winger who will quickly be run out of town for producing a third of what Marner could do offensively. Going a different route makes sense.
Hamilton has the heavier point shot that the Leafs have coveted, as well as the right shot on the powerplay that they’ve looked for. He checks the boxes, it’s just a matter of determining how to make it work from a cap perspective and that the Devils are probably going to want a meaningful player back.
I hate guessing what a trade would look like as New Jersey’s motivations are going to be foreign to someone who exclusive covers the Leafs, but given that their season was largely derailed by Jack Hughes’ injury it is likely that they are coming back this season with the intent to take a giant leap forward and just dropping a top defenceman doesn’t add up beyond needing to make Luke Hughes cap hit work.
The Leafs have an advantage in that they are full of players that Sheldon Keefe knows and if there is a path to creating cap space while bringing in talent that the coach wants to work with, the Leafs could make a favourable deal here.
While the likelihood of a deal happening is slim, it is one of the more interesting things to keep an eye on in the dog days of summer. Treliving is supposedly in on everything, and it stands to reason that his first big splash in Calgary as a GM could also be one of his biggest splashes in Toronto as well.
Enjoy paying for Sportsnet’s NHL rights
Much to the chagrin of some (me included) the NHL awarded Sportsnet the NHL broadcast rights for the next 12 years. This after a pretty uninspiring run with their current rights. When it comes to TSN vs. Sportsnet coverage I am firmly a TSN guy and if you aren’t and enjoy Sportsnet, congrats on your win.
The thing is, someone is going to have to pay for that win and Sportsnet has recently made it clear who that will be.
Sportsnet has announced a 25% increase in the cost of its standard package from $199.99 to $249.99, and a 30% increase from $249.99 to $324.99 of its premium package, that includes out of market games. As someone out of market who covers the Leafs, I certainly have feelings on that and apparently so do a lot of other people.
Sports are a luxury, and no one needs to buy this and there are certainly workarounds for still viewing out of market games. There is also a benefit to the Leafs featuring prominently on the national stage that makes things a little easier than being a Blue Jackets fan in this predicament, but there are long term effects to this that will shape the growth of the game.
This certainly doesn’t grow sports in Canada, and without going full “won’t somebody please think of the children” about this, it was already ridiculously expensive to take kids to a game and now it is getting tougher to get them into sports at home too.
This seems like a huge supply and demand risk at time when people are already realizing that their streaming subscriptions exceed what they were spending on cable. How many people will opt out on Sportsnet and if they take a loss here, what is the fallout for those employed at Rogers and to a lesser extent, what will the quality of the on air product be on a reduced budget? As it is, Sportsnet is a collection of rerunning clip shows mixed in with a couple of sportsnet news summaries and maybe one or two live events in a day, that maybe one of is actually produced by Sportsnet. How do they cut back further?
Maybe it’s because I already consider the product quality on the low side that raising the price seems unfathomable (not really unfathomable, raising prices is what corporations do best). And while this probably isn’t the beginning of the end of sports in Canada, it’s hard to imagine people paying more for Sportsnet based on the current state of their product.