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5 Toronto Maple Leafs Players That Should Be Gone by the 2025 NHL Trade Deadline

With the Maple Leafs likely to make significant moves ahead of the trade deadline, which players could see their days remaining in the organization numbered?
ByEdward Eng|
Nov 2, 2024; St. Louis, Missouri, USA; Toronto Maple Leafs center Steven Lorentz (18) is congratulated by right wing Ryan Reaves (75) and defenseman Conor Timmins (25) after scoring against the St. Louis Blues during the third period at Enterprise Center. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Curry-Imagn Images
Nov 2, 2024; St. Louis, Missouri, USA; Toronto Maple Leafs center Steven Lorentz (18) is congratulated by right wing Ryan Reaves (75) and defenseman Conor Timmins (25) after scoring against the St. Louis Blues during the third period at Enterprise Center. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Curry-Imagn Images | Jeff Curry-Imagn Images
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F Ryan Reaves

When the Maple Leafs signed Ryan Reaves to a three-year, $4,050,000 contract during the 2023 offseason, they were hoping that his intimidating presence would help protect and give more space to their star players while bringing some solid hitting and forechecking to the fourth line at the same time.

Last season, Reaves fulfilled his role for the most part, as he suited up for almost eight minutes a night while amassing 4 goals, 2 assists, 49 penalty minutes along with 165 hits in 49 games played. However, as the season went on, the Leafs began to realize that there wasn’t an absolute necessity for him to be in the lineup.

That was because they found out that whenever Reaves took the ice in 5-on-5 situations, he had only a CF% of 48% and scoring chances rate of 47% while being outscored 22-10 in the process. As a result, he eventually saw some more time in the pressbox, including a couple games during the playoffs. (All stats from NHL.com, hockey-reference.com and naturalstattrick.com and salaries from Puckpedia.com)

This year, Reaves has seen his ice time diminish a bit more, down to about 7:50 per night. As for his production, he has accumulated just 2 assists and 23 penalty minutes in 29 games played to date. In addition, his CF% and scoring chances rate in 5-on-5 situations have both gotten way worse, falling to 44% and 38% respectively. More significantly, as the team’s enforcer, he hadn't even engaged in a single fight yet this season, until the Leafs played Columbus on Tuesday, which was the role that many expected him to undertake.

Leafs head coach Craig Berube has been using Reaves more sporadically as well, as he has become a frequent healthy scratch in recent weeks. As a result, at $1.35 million AAV per season while seeing more time in the pressbox than actually playing in each passing day, Reaves’ time with the Leafs could be over pretty soon. Instead of seeing that investment wasted sitting out games, they will likely want to use that cap space for more crucial trade deadline moves to help the team.

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