Toronto Maple Leafs Make Cuts, Try for a Trade, Still Way Over the Cap

The Toronto Maple Leafs are almost ready for their season opening game on Wednesday night against Montreal.

The Toronto Maple Leafs split a pair of weekend games against the Detroit Red Wings to close out the preseason.

They lost Friday by a score of 4-2, then won last night on a pair of Auston Matthews goals to finish the preseason on a strong note.  I don’t put too much stock in the preseason, but it’s clearly a good sign to see Matthews close things out with a pair of goals.

Ultimately the Leafs Training Camp ended up being more interesting that it otherwise could have been due to all the injuries, and the intrigue of being slightly over the cap.  Matt Murray was the biggest story of camp, and his excellent play is great and all, but……it’s still just the preseason.

Robertson and Malgin are interesting stories, and it will be interesting to see what the Leafs end up doing.

The team followed their win last night with several roster cuts and will play their first game in three days. They remain over $2 million dollars above the NHL’s salary cap.

Toronto Maple Leafs Roster Cuts

The Leafs made several roster cuts after their game last night, the foremost among them is Wayne Simmonds.

Simmonds is a warrior and I’m a huge fan of his, but it’s been clear for a while now he wasn’t one of the 12 best options the Leafs had. The Leafs are a classy organization and it’s nice they’re trying to help keep him in the NHL.

Hopefully he gets traded and can continue his career elsewhere.

Additionally, the Leafs cut the following players:

No surprises here. Joey Anderson and Mac Hollowell are decent depth pieces, but I don’t think anyone really expected them to seriously challenge for a roster spot when the only real non-injury spots were already more or less claimed by Nick Robertson and Nick Aube-Kubel.

Abruzzese and Steeves each had a better shot in my opinion, and both of them should be among the first call ups when call ups are eventually needed. Other than that, no real surprises here.

Anderson and Hollowell are on waivers and will most likely clear, leaving the Leafs with a great amount of depth, and still tons of questions to answer:

Is Alex Kerfoot getting traded? Is John Tavares healthy ?  Who sits when Liljegren is ready? Will the goaltending really hold up? What’s up with the Blue Jays?

The season starts Wednesday and there are still lots of interesting questions surrounding the Toronto Maple Leafs.