Saturday morning the Toronto Maple Leafs announced that they had signed undrafted Borya Valis from the Prince George Cougars of the Western Hockey League to an Entry Level Contract (ELC).
Valis will join the Toronto Maple Leafs organization after going undrafted twice in the NHL Entry Draft and the soon to be 21-year old will bring size to the forward prospect pool.
The 6'2" right winger is originally from Los Angeles, California but played his youth hockey through the Colorado youth hockey program (ref: eliteprospects.com). In his final year of U16 AAA hockey he led his team in scoring with 51 goals and 88 points in 60 games alongside fellow NHL prospects David Klee (SJS) and Fisher Scott (DET).
Valis joined the WHL's Regina Pats as a 17-year old playing two and a half seasons there until he was traded last year to Prince George. Since joining the Cougars, Valis has collected 42-goals and 110-points in 89 games. His WHL career has total 236 games where he has collected 216-points. Prince George recently clinched a birth in the playoffs and should see home ice in the first round so it may be a bit of time before he can join the Toronto Marlies.
Calle Järnkrok rejoins line rushes at practice
There was lots of injury news coming out of Maple Leafs practice Saturday morning that will impact the club moving forward. Calle Järnkrok was taking reps at the center position on the third line between Nicholas Robertson and Bobby McMann. Coach Craig Berube told Mark Masters that he felt Järnkrok was ready to go "It's decision time for him and the doctors".
It is hard to read where Järnkrok will fit in as he was taking the spot of Max Domi who was not on the ice for what Berube stated was a maintenance day.
Other notables that were not on the ice was Oliver Ekman-Larsson (OEL) who missed nearly the entire third period of Friday nights victory against the New York Rangers, as well as Steven Lorentz and Chris Tanev were also not skating with the team. Berube did not seemed concerned about OEL or Lorentz stating they were out on a maintenance day.
The Maple Leafs coach told reporters that Tanev was feeling better, but he would not be skating in either of the games on Sunday (Pittsburgh) or Monday (San Jose). The club also placed Max Pacioretty on injured reserve ahead of the game against the Rangers and recalled defenseman Marshall Rifai.
With the recent injuries to Tanev and OEL, it quickly shows how depleted the backend gets as they could be forced to dress four borderline NHL defenseman on Sunday with Jake McCabe and the suddenly surging Morgan Rielly needing to step up.
Whether OEL is back in the line-up or not on Sunday, it should show general manager Brad Treliving how close he is to have a defensive core that would see two of Philippe Myers, Marshall Rifai, Simon Benoit or Connor Timmins in the top four with the other two still getting 15-minutes in the bottom pair. Treliving has less than a week to fix this problem.