The Toronto Maple Leafs have hit the ground running after the completion of the Stanley Cup Final earlier this week, trading Joseph Woll and Simon Benoit to Philadelphia for Emil Andrae, Samuel Ersson, and a third-round pick, and naming Jim Hiller as their next head coach. Early Friday morning, a report from Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman indicated that GM John Chayka is on the verge of completing a sign-and-trade for Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman Darren Raddysh.
The trade has been confirmed by Chris Johnston and Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic. Reports are that a late-round draft pick is going to the Lightning for the Toronto native, and that the Leafs will be signing Raddysh to an eight-year deal with an AAV in excess of $8 million.
The 30-year-old Toronto native had a career year for the Lightning, scoring 70 points (22 goals, 48 assists), playing on their top pairing, and quarterbacking their power play for most of the season in the absence of future Hall of Famer Victor Hedman. Raddysh was scheduled to be an unrestricted free agent on July 1st in a very thin free agent class, so the preemptive move potentially saves Toronto involvement in a bidding war, allows them to sign the right-handed blueliner to a max contract to spread the AAV out over a maximum term, and would provide Tampa GM Julien Brisebois some return for a player he would get nothing for in a couple weeks.
The preemptive sign and trade is similar to the deal made with Vegas last June for Mitch Marner, when Toronto signed the winger to an eight-year, $96 million contract and then traded him to the Golden Knights for Nicolas Roy. Adding a significant salary may have been part of the reason why Chayka cleared nearly $5 million in cap space with the trade with Philadelphia, but it is also likely that this deal signals that the Leafs feel they will be able to move Morgan Rielly’s $7.5 million salary at some point over the next few weeks.
