Tyler Ennis was recently bought out by the Minnesota Wild, but has now found another home. The Toronto Maple Leafs announced a one-year $650K contract for the diminutive veteran, bringing him in to add some depth to the bottom-half of their lineup.
Ennis, 28, was once an extremely effective player for the Buffalo Sabres, scoring at least 20 goals on three different occasions. The 5’9″ forward doesn’t have a fearful bone in his body, and played bigger than he was by digging hard in the corners and driving hard towards the net. Unfortunately, those kind of plays caught up with his small frame and he has struggled through concussion and groin injuries the last few seasons, while being included as a salary dump by one team and bought out a year later by another. He’ll earn more than $2.4MM over the next two seasons from Minnesota thanks to that buyout, making this new deal seem extremely reasonable for the Maple Leafs.
It is reasonable for Toronto, given that they are rarely worried about actual salary commitments and instead are always dealing with the cap ceiling. For a team that still has plenty of room this summer to make another big splash—even after handing $11MM to John Tavares—Ennis represents a cheap addition that could provide big results. Even last season playing limited minutes in Minnesota Ennis scored 22 points and was a fairly useful player, but the Wild couldn’t afford to keep his $4.6MM cap hit on the books as they look to figure out a way to push past the first round.
For the Maple Leafs, he’ll join players like Josh Jooris, Par Lindholm, Josh Leivo and even maybe Connor Brown in a fourth-line group that could be rotated around for much of the season. Ennis could even provide an option on the powerplay, though Toronto has plenty of talented options to use in that situation. The fact that he’s not a penalty killer will likely hurt his ice time considerably, given that the fourth line won’t be playing a ton for the Maple Leafs this season.
Exactly. Depth for the bottom of the lineup. I’m sure there will be the “does he play D?” comments, but there’s still lots of off-season left for Dubas to address that. Quality addition. What size of ring will you need Tyler?
I didn’t realize that handed out rings at gold tournaments in April. Where do you golf?
Zietsev,Gardiner,1st round pick for PK Subban. Please Kyle make this happen.
please explain why Nashville would do this trade?
Unless Kyle has a gun pointed at David Poile, he ain’t making that happen.
Subban costs you Marner and then some.
even then Poile likely says no. would be better taking a bullet than watching his team implode with Gardiner on the backend.
Leafs/Dubas won’t give up Matthews, Marner or Kadri…period! And I don’t think the leafs have the cap space to add a Subban-type Dman. Besides, I see callous from Calder Cup Champ Marlies to fill D spots if needed.
Best case for a trade would be Nylander and picks. Doubt they’ll give up Nylander at this point tho.
good signing. A depth piece at the league minimum. still leaves room to address other areas and players as well as have deadline flexibility.
Yup I like this move too
He was an exciting player to watch last year but could literally never finish his opportunities. I swear if he’d finish on 30% of his golden scoring chances he’d have 25 goals.
Sure would have rather had Duclair for the same price
Reason why Ennius was bought out
maybe but for the role (likely a 4th line player), duclair was going to find a team who promised more ice time and a chance to regain some value vs agreeing to likely what will be less than 8 minutes of ice time on avg per game.
Still the leafs have no size upfront at all now
I was truly hopping they could land Maroon
Leafs will have a great season but this team is not built for playoff hockey at all