Maple Leafs Give Up On Ryan Reaves In Move That Felt Inevitable

The Toronto Maple Leafs freed up a bit of cap space Thursday afternoon – perhaps, in advance of a trade acquisition or two – when they put veteran right winger Ryan Reaves on waivers. Given that Reaves has been a healthy scratch for roughly half of the season and that he has just two assists and zero goals in 35 games, the move is hardly surprising. And as we’ll explore below, this is a contract trajectory that mirrors another relatively recent deal given to a Leafs enforcer whose best days were behind them.

But first, let’s get a few things out of the way. As we said on Bluesky, some contracts you look at when they’re signed and you say, “that deal won’t see its natural end,” – and the Reaves contract he signed in 2023 was one of them. The Leafs gave Reaves a three-year contract when no other team would give him one, and for good reason: he was going to be 37 years old at the end of the first year of the contract, and imagining that he was still going to be a contributor for the Leafs at age 39 in the final year of the deal is stretching the bounds of credulity.

Indeed, we’re betting that, if you had Leafs management placed under a lie detector, they’d admit that they signed Reaves knowing full well they’d likely be dunking the final season of his contract in the American League. And all you have to do to see why we feel that way is to see what Toronto did with another tough guy with little left in the tank – former NHLer Kyle Clifford.

If you recall, the Leafs acquired Clifford from St. Louis in November of 2021, And while he had a Stanley Cup championship to his credit from his time in Los Angeles, Clifford played only 23 games with Toronto that season – and only two more games with the Leafs after that – before the Buds buried him in the AHL, where he is still playing for the Toronto Marlies to this day.

That’s where we expect Reaves to be for the rest of this season and next season. By the end of his contract, retirement will be the next logical step. We don’t say this with any glee – Reaves was well-liked by his Leafs teammates, and he has played in 15 NHL seasons with a limited skill set, so he can take pride in that. But careers like his rarely end the way enforcer players hoped they would, and Thursday’s move certainly seems like the Leafs are burying Reaves’ contract ahead of making a trade of consequence.

In the pecking order of the modern-day NHL system, players like Reaves are a luxury few teams have anymore. He was more or less of a one-trick pony as a fighter, and considering he only fought once this season, it’s a surprise being placed on waivers move didn’t happen sooner for him. Reaves’ number was up, and it feels like he had to know this type of move was coming.

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