It apparently was a mutual decision between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Ryan Reaves at the end of the season that his future was elsewhere, leading to the trade that sent the former enforcer to the San Jose Sharks for defenseman Henry Thrun. In a media availability after the trade, the 38-year-old journeyman said that he believed that the Leafs hierarchy had lost confidence that he could serve an effective role any longer.
“I told (GM Brad Treliving) at the end of the year, I just thought that this wasn’t obviously a good fit. I’m assuming he probably thought the same after putting me on waivers and sending me to the minors, and I just thought it was kind of time to part ways,” Reaves said. “I think there was just a lack of trust very early in the season. It just kind of looked like I had one bad game, and I was out of the lineup for 4,5,6,7,8,9 games. I’d come back and have a good game, but (I was) taken right back out. I just really could never gain any momentum with my game.”
There is a problem with Reaves’ statement. He said he had good games, it would be interesting to find out which those were, because his job was not to be a scorer, it was to be an enforcer, and last season he was just as much a liability on the ice as he was the first half of last season.
The fact that teams would not engage him in a fight is proof of that, since they did not want to take him off the ice and have a chance to score against the Leafs fourth line. For a player brought in to be the “sheriff” and be a physical threat to other clubs, Reaves had one fight in 35 games and an ugly match penalty against Darnell Nurse in a game against Edmonton.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, goaltender Matt Murray signed a one-year deal with the Seattle Kraken earlier this month, but reflected on his three injury-plagued seasons in Toronto with an appreciation of the organization.
“It was my dad’s favorite team, and it was the first NHL hockey game I ever went to with my dad. I thought it was the honor of a lifetime to wear that jersey. Like I said, it had a special place in my heart just from family history, so it wasn’t much of a consideration for me. I enjoyed every second in Toronto,” Murray said on Sportsnet FAN 590. “It was the honor of a lifetime to get to wear that jersey and to have my game-worn jerseys that I’ll be able to show my kids one day. They got to see me play. They were young, but they got to see me play for the Leafs, and that’s incredibly special for me.”
The Leafs have had some issues with their Russian goalie prospects getting playing time in the mother country, which has forced them to bring them over earlier than expected. Marlies goalie Artur Akhtyamov got most of his experience in the second-division VHL until his last season, when he played 17 KHL games, but was demoted when a more experienced goalie got the lion’s share of starts.
2021 draftee Slava Peksa was in the same pipeline with Ak-Bars Kazan and came to North America early, playing the last two seasons in the ECHL.
Toronto drafted another Russian, Timofei Obvintsev in the 5th round of the 2024 NHL Draft and according to reporter Kyle Cushman, the 20-year-old has signed a one-year contract with Gornyak-UGMK in the VHL. Obvintsev played only 11 games for CSKA Moscow’s junior level team and would be behind Columbus Blue Jackets 2025 first rounder Pyotr Andreyanov on an ongoing basis.
Gornyak is the second-level club for Avtomobilist Ykaterinburg, the KHL club in Obvintsev’s hometown.
