Mermis was plucked off waivers from Utah last month after he was waived by Toronto back in December and claimed by Utah. The 31-year-old has dressed in just one NHL game this season (with Utah) and hasn’t seen much AHL action either, suiting up for just a dozen AHL games and posting three assists with the Marlies.

For the 20-year-old Minten, his demotion likely means an opportunity to play bigger minutes which should aid in his development. The Maple Leafs’ second-round pick in 2022 (38th overall) has played 15 NHL games this season, tallying two goals and two assists while averaging just over 12 minutes a night of ice time. In the AHL, Minten has had an opportunity to play more of an offensive role and his numbers reflect that as he has five goals and five assists in 16 games with the Marlies.

Given Toronto’s roster moves today it seems likely that defenseman Philippe Myers could be inserted into the lineup for tomorrow night’s game against the Calgary Flames. Myers last played on Wednesday night against the Minnesota Wild.

Tavares left practice favoring his right leg after getting tangled up with defenseman Chris Tanev during a power play drill. The team later said he’ll be evaluated on a week-to-week basis.

It’s a big blow for the Leafs down the middle in particular but also for the forward group as a whole, which was as healthy as it had been all season save for the lingering absence of Calle Järnkrok after he underwent sports hernia surgery in November. Tavares had been running cold before the injury, going without a point in his last three games, but he still ranks second on the club in both goals (20) and assists (22) as he looks replenished following a trying 2023-24 campaign. His usual line with Max Pacioretty and William Nylander has outscored opponents 9-7 at even strength in over 155 minutes together this season.

Whoever moves up to replace Tavares down the middle on the second line remains to be seen. It could be the 20-year-old Minten, who didn’t look entirely out of place during a call-up earlier this season with a pair of goals and assists for four points in 11 games. His possession numbers weren’t good, only controlling 39.9% of shot attempts at even strength, but those should be boosted if he’s playing with better competition. His minutes earlier this season primarily came between Steven Lorentz and Nicholas Robertson while Toronto was dealing with injuries to nearly half their forward group.

It could also be a chance to jumpstart the struggling Max Domi, who’s shooting at an abysmal 5.5% for just three goals through 37 games. He’s still managed 12 assists for 15 points, tying for eighth on the team in scoring, but it’s not the production the Leafs envisioned from the 29-year-old after they signed him to a four-year, $15MM extension last offseason.

In any event, the Leafs are now without the services of one of their top point-getters as they look to reverse a three-game losing streak against former head coach Sheldon Keefe tonight. After tonight, three of their next four games are against divisional opponents, and they’re all potential playoff previews against the Lightning, Canadiens, and Senators.

Minten, selected 38th overall in 2022, has 10 points and a minus-four rating in 16 AHL appearances this season. He missed significant time at the beginning of the campaign with a high ankle sprain sustained in rookie camp.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

8:30 AM: The Leafs have reassigned center prospect Fraser Minten to AHL Toronto, per the team’s media relations department. Minten was a healthy scratch in Sunday’s win over the Sabres after playing in 11 straight contests since a mid-November call-up. He’s still 145 games played or three seasons away from requiring waivers.

A consistent point producer during his time in major junior play, the 20-year-old Minten entered the 2024-25 campaign with the guarantee he’d be playing professional hockey regardless of whether he made Toronto’s roster out of camp. Unfortunately, a high ankle sprain he sustained in rookie camp sidelined him for nearly six weeks and erased any hope of cracking the Maple Leafs’ opening night roster for the second season in a row. The 2022 second-round pick played four games last season, going without a point, before being returned to the WHL’s Kamloops Blazers by the end of October.

Minten’s season got off to a strong start in the AHL after being cleared to return from his ankle injury on Oct. 29. He recorded two goals and two assists in his first five minor-league games before a cascading injury situation among Toronto’s NHL forward group necessitated his recall. Fortunately, his second crack at NHL minutes went better than his first. Minten routinely centered the Leafs’ third line, posting a pair of goals and assists for four points through 11 games with an even rating. The physical 6’1″, 185-lb center recorded 13.22 hits per 60 minutes, fifth on the Leafs this season, and averaged 12:47 per game while winning 45.1% of his draws.

Decent as those numbers are, Minten’s two-way game needs some work. The Maple Leafs controlled only 41.6% of shot attempts with Minten on the ice at 5-on-5, the worst of any player with at least 10 appearances in blue and white this season. He’ll continue adapting his defensive awareness to the professional level in the AHL, where he’ll likely spend most of the remainder of the season before making himself a serious contender for an opening-night job in October 2025.

Kämpf, 29, has played in all but one of Toronto’s 19 games this season. His absence wasn’t due to injury; instead, he was a healthy scratch against the Blue Jackets on Oct. 22.

It’s unclear if Kämpf sustained the injury in the Leafs’ last outing, an overtime win over the Oilers on Saturday, or if he’d been playing through it for multiple games. He didn’t miss a shift against Edmonton and has logged at least 14 minutes of ice time in his last four contests.

Kämpf is in the second season of the four-year, $9.6MM extension he signed days before the unrestricted free-agent market opened in 2023. Lauded far more for his competency in the faceoff dot and on the penalty kill than his even-strength impacts, the Czechia native is coming off his worst season in Toronto since arriving as a free agent in 2021. Kämpf’s 11 assists, 19 points and -4 rating in 78 games were his lowest totals as a Maple Leaf, as were his 79 shots on goal, 13:29 ATOI and 50.9 FO%.

While Kämpf has improved up to a 53.6% rate in the dot, it’s been more of the same everywhere else in 2024-25. He’s yet to score a goal and has three assists and a -2 rating, averaging 12:18 per game. He’s still influential on the penalty kill, but for a player who receives little to no offensive zone usage at even strength, $2.4MM per season is a significant salary cap commitment.

The retroactive placement means Kämpf has already been out for three of the seven days required for IR. He’ll miss Wednesday’s game against the Golden Knights but will be eligible to return for Sunday’s contest against Utah.

The news means the Maple Leafs will be down two of their regular four centers when they take on Vegas tomorrow. Captain Auston Matthews is expected to miss his seventh straight game as he remains day-to-day with an upper-body injury, David Alter of The Hockey News reported Monday.

While the Leafs have more than a few players on their roster who could shift from wing to center, including Connor Dewar, Pontus Holmberg, or William Nylander, they don’t have an extra forward available on the active roster to slide into the lineup to replace Kämpf. Unless head coach Craig Berube opts to deploy 11 forwards and seven defensemen tomorrow against the Knights, Minten will make his season debut.

Minten, 20, was the Maple Leafs’ first selection in the 2022 draft, coming off the board early in the second round at 38th overall. He was expected to challenge for a job on the opening night roster in training camp this year, but a high ankle sprain sustained in rookie camp kept him on the shelf until late October.

Since being activated from season-opening injured reserve and assigned to the AHL, the 6’2″ pivot has two goals and two assists for four points with a +4 rating in five games. Minten got a brief taste of NHL hockey early last season as a 19-year-old, posting zeroes across the board while averaging 11:26 per game before being returned to his major junior team.

In his fourth and final season of WHL hockey in 2023-24, split between the Kamloops Blazers and Saskatoon Blades, Minten had 22 goals and 26 assists for 48 points with a +18 rating in 43 games. He also captained Canada at the 2024 World Junior Championship, posting a goal and two assists in five outings.

Minten missed all of training camp and the first few weeks of the regular season after sustaining a high ankle sprain during a rookie camp game in mid-September. That ended any hopes the 2022 second-round pick had of making the opening night roster, and without a clear fit for him in the NHL now, he’ll head to the minors and log heavy minutes with the Marlies.

One of the organization’s top prospects, Minten didn’t crack The Athletic’s league-wide top-100 list over the summer but is still one of the best up-and-coming forwards within the Toronto pipeline. A strong training camp in 2023 landed him a brief NHL look, playing in four games while averaging 11:26 per contest before the Leafs returned him to juniors. He split last season in the WHL between the Kamloops Blazers and the Saskatoon Blades, totaling 48 points in 43 contests with a +18 rating. He also captained the Canadian squad at the 2024 World Juniors, posting a goal and two assists in five appearances.

He’ll now get to make his AHL debut with the Marlies and will get an extended runway there to acclimate to the professional level. He should be considered an outside candidate at best to get a recall at some point later on in the season.

The Maple Leafs have utilized Nylander at center on and off throughout his nine-year career, but never for an extended period. Berube hinted that could change, though, allowing Toronto to potentially have one of the deepest top nines down the middle in the league with Auston Matthews and John Tavares anchoring separate lines.

Nylander has frequently alternated between Matthews’ and Tavares’ right wings since the latter arrived in Toronto in 2018, mostly skating with the latter. He’s coming off a career-best 2023-24 campaign that saw him score 40 goals and 98 points, skating in all 82 games for the second regular season in a row. He’s entering the first year of the eight-year, $92MM extension he signed in January.

More news and notes as Toronto begins its training camp:

• Rogers Communications is now the majority owner of parent corporation Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment after purchasing a 37.5% stake in the company for nearly $3.5B, Scott Soshnick and Kurt Badenhausen of Sportico report. Rogers already owned 37.5% of the company and purchased this stake from fellow Canadian telecom giant Bell, putting a total valuation of MLSE at $9.3B. The corporation owns the NBA’s Toronto Raptors, MLS’ Toronto FC, and the CFL’s Toronto Argonauts in addition to the Maple Leafs. The transaction will close in mid-2025.
• For the second time in his career, Tavares is beginning a contract year without an extension in hand and risks becoming an unrestricted free agent. “I want to be here. I want to be here long term, hopefully that happens,” he told reporters Wednesday (via Alter). Now in the final year of the seven-year, $77MM mega-deal he signed to come to Toronto as a free agent in 2018, Tavares will be looking at a significant reduction from his $11MM AAV to stay in Toronto. The captain turns 34 on Friday and had 29 goals and 65 points in 80 games last season.
• General manager Brad Trelivingalso spoke to reporters today, offering injury updates on a variety of Leafs skaters who will be absent from the first day of camp (via Alter). Chief among them is Connor Dewar, who’s still not fully cleared following offseason shoulder surgery. The 25-year-old won’t be ready for the start of camp but should be good to go when the regular season begins next month. Dewar had a goal and four assists in 17 games with Toronto after being acquired from the Wild at last year’s trade deadline. An RFA this summer, he and the Leafs settled on a one-year, $1.18MM deal to avoid arbitration.
• Roster hopeful Fraser Minten is looking at a weeks-long absence after sustaining a high-ankle sprain during rookie camp, Treliving said. It’s a tough blow for the 20-year-old, who unexpectedly cracked the Leafs’ opening-night roster last year and averaged 11:26 through four appearances before being loaned back to his junior club. Minten, the No. 38 overall pick in 2022, is now old enough for a full-time AHL assignment and will likely be sent to the Toronto Marlies to begin the season after he’s cleared to return.
• Treliving also confirmed that 2024 first-round pick Ben Danford sustained a concussion during rookie camp but is progressing well. The 18-year-old defender could get a few reps with Toronto in camp later on but will spend 2024-25 on loan to the OHL’s Oshawa Generals after signing his entry-level contract in August.

Hamilton quoted Adams saying, “We’ve talked at length about it and Lindy said that he wants to get to know the guys. He spent a lot of time in the summer whether in person or on the phone, but just being around them and feeling them in practice, and I think we’re on the same page“. Although Adams was non-committal about when the organization may name their next captain all signs indicate it will happen before their first game on October 4th.

The top two candidates will likely be between defenseman Rasmus Dahlin and forward Alex Tuch. Dahlin is the former first-overall pick of the 2018 NHL Draft by the Sabres and has isolated himself as one of the best defensemen in the league. Tuch, on the other hand, is not necessarily the most talented player on the roster but holds a very public love for the city of Buffalo having grown up just east of the team in Syracuse, NY.

Other Atlantic notes:

• The Toronto Maple Leafs received a mild scare today with forward prospect Fraser Minten stepping away from the rest of today’s prospects game against the Montreal Canadiens. He was hit awkwardly into the boards in the second period before exiting from the game but Nick Barden of The Hockey News reports he’s only being held out for precautionary reasons. The former 38th overall pick of the 2022 NHL Draft went scoreless in his first few games with the Maple Leafs last season and is expected to spend much of next year with the team’s AHL affiliate, the Toronto Marlies.
• On the other side of the border, the Detroit Red Wings are dealing with mild injury news to one of their forward prospects. Max Bultman of The Athletic reports that Michael Brandsegg-Nygård tweaked his groin in yesterday’s matchup against the Dallas Stars and will not play today. There’s no cause for concern for the recent 15th overall pick of the 2024 NHL Draft after registering an assist in yesterday’s win. He’s expected to join Detroit in Traverse City on Thursday to begin training camp as the team did not want to force a quick turnaround on their new prospect.

It was more of a continuation of what we saw from Kuzmenko in his rookie season two years ago when he erupted for 39 goals and 74 points in 81 games after signing in Vancouver as an undrafted free agent. But there are warning signs abound with his game, whether it be his sky-high 27.3 shooting percentage during that rookie campaign or his inconsistent play away from the puck that got him benched for a decent chunk of the early going last year before the trade. As such, if Kuzmenko is again among Calgary’s leading scorers this year, expect the pending UFA to be one of the bigger chips at the trade deadline, opines Jim Parsons of The Hockey News.

At 28, Kuzmenko doesn’t align with the Flames’ timeline for returning to playoff contention after selling off most of their core over the last 12 months. Signing him to an extension and attempting to shop him later carries many risks if his expected year-to-year inconsistency damages his trade value. But if he continues to produce at a 60-to-80-point pace as one of the Flames’ lone dangerous offensive weapons in 2024-25, Calgary general manager Craig Conroy could land the best of both worlds by recouping a decent trade return.

Kuzmenko is entering the back half of a two-year, $11MM extension the Canucks signed him to midway through his rookie campaign. He does have a 12-team no-trade list that Conroy would need to work around in potential deadline discussions.

There’s more from around the league today:

• Penguins center Lars Eller hasn’t been the subject of trade rumors this offseason, but Dan Kingerski of Pittsburgh Hockey Now argues he should be. After signing a two-year, $4.9MM deal with the Pens in free agency in 2023, the 35-year-old could find himself as Pittsburgh’s 13th forward come opening night, giving way to offseason additions Anthony Beauvillier, Kevin Hayes and Blake Lizotte. If he won’t be a regular, the Pens would likely be better off giving some NHL reps to fringe prospects like Vasiliy Ponomarev, Samuel Poulin, and Brayden Yager.
• Maple Leafs center prospect Fraser Minten will be in the mix to land a spot on the opening night roster for the second year in a row, and assistant general manager Dr. Hayley Wickenheiser tells NHL.com’s Dave McCarthy that he’s not too far away from landing a full-time spot after a four-game trial last fall. “He adapts really well,” Wickenheiser said. “He is great to work with from a development standpoint. He’s always curious on his own game. He studies the game of others and for him, it’s just about trying to assist him toward taking that next step to being an everyday NHL player. He’s very close.” After playing in his fourth season of junior hockey with the WHL’s Kamloops Blazers and Saskatoon Blades last season, Minten will be eligible to head to AHL Toronto in 2024-25 should he not make the team out of camp.

Elsewhere around the hockey world:

• With the games for the week now over due to the holiday break, the NHL released its weekly Three Stars today. Wild winger Kirill Kaprizov was named First Star on the heels of recording seven points in four games including back-to-back overtime winners.  Rangers center Mika Zibanejad is the Second Star after also notching seven points in four contests.  Meanwhile, Red Wings winger Patrick Kane takes home the Third Star nod after leading the league in scoring with eight points in his four appearances.
• Maple Leafs prospect Fraser Minten has been named captain of Canada’s World Junior team, per an announcement from Hockey Canada (Twitter link). The 19-year-old made his NHL debut this season, getting into a pair of games before being sent back to the WHL where he has since been traded.  Canada has four players with at least one game of NHL experience; all four of them are among the players who will be among their group of captains.

Elsewhere in the Atlantic Division:

• Maple Leafs prospect center Fraser Minten is on the move as WHL Saskatoon announced that they’ve acquired the 19-year-old from Kamloops. Minten made Toronto’s roster out of training camp and got into four games with them before being assigned back to junior last month.  Since that re-assignment, he has been quite productive offensively, notching ten points in his first seven games.  Saskatoon moved a pair of first-round picks as part of the swap, a fairly high price tag for a one-year rental as Minten will be eligible to play in the AHL next season if he doesn’t crack Toronto’s roster out of camp once again.
• Senators owner Michael Andlauer has received an extension on determining if LeBreton Flats is the right location for a new arena, Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch reports. Originally, their exclusivity agreement was set to expire in the fall but will now go until next September.  This location has long been viewed as the best fit for a new building although Andlauer and his ownership group will need time to look into an assess other potential opportunities which this extension will give him a chance to do.