If you are looking at William Nylander and Auston Matthews are crossing your fingers for a contract or perhaps you are closing examining the Leafs blue line and trying to determine where exactly the promised upgrade is, you might be counting on a significant action being taken in August. The question is, how likely is that action to occur? Should you plan your days around the Leafs PR account or should you go out and enjoy the summer? I think you already know the answer, but still here’s a history of what the Leafs have done in August (or August like months over the past decade.)
2022
Last summer the Leafs transactions were limited to the signing of Dylan Ferguson to a pro tryout. Ferguson would go on to briefly serve as Marlies depth before landing an NHL contract with the Senators. This year he’ll play in Belarus.
Not exactly a strong sales pitch for expecting big moves.
In contrast, Brad Treliving signed Nazem Kadri and re-signed Jonathan Huberdeau and Andrew Mangipane. He also dealt Sean Monahan to the Canadiens. A lot of that busy August was out of the necessity of a disastrous July though.
2021
August of 2021 was a busy time for Marlies signings and front office promotions. New titles were given to Eric Joyce and Wes Clark, while the Leafs signed Keith Petruzzelli, Matt Hellickson, and re-signed Joseph Duszak, amongst others. Keith Petruzzelli would go on to become some necessary depth for the Leafs and is still a goaltender of note in the organization, but if Toronto mirrors this you aren’t going to get much in the way of meaningful hockey talk out of it.
Brad Treliving spent this August re-signing a number of the Flames restricted free agents which is only marginally more exciting.
2020
In August of 2020 the Leafs pulled off the Kasperi Kapanen trade which was pretty significant and that was the only move that occurred in August that year. That was also the COVID return to play summer so hockey was still going on and the typical July transactions were instead slated for October.
By proxy we’ll consider November and December as our “August” months for that season and the Leafs did nothing after October 30th until they waived Kalle Kossila on December 28th.
During that time with the Flames, Brad Treliving signed his first round pick, Connor Zary, and signed Garret Sparks to a PTO.
2019
The last pre-COVID year saw the Leafs sign Matt Read (remember him?) to a pro try out agreement.
The Marlies also signed a trio of players. An August tradition.
Brad Treliving was equally uninteresting with the Flames.
2018
August of 2018 saw the departure of Martins Dzierkals from the Leafs reserve list as he left to play in Latvia.
Perhaps the most significant August move in Leafs recent history occurred with the hiring of Hayley Wickenheiser as an Assistant Director of Player Development.
Brad Treliving pulled off a Hunter Shinkaruk for Kerby Rychel trade as his way of showing that he was still at work.
2017
The Leafs re-signed Connor Brown and the Marlies re-signed Martins Dzierkals. They also waived Alexei Marchenko is a great “remember a guy” player the next time you have the Leafs and Red Wings intersect on Puckdoku.
Brad Treliving ate Bandera bread on a yacht.
2016
This was by all things we’ve seen so far the Leafs busiest August.
The Leafs signed Jhonas Enroth to be a backup goaltender (it didn’t seem like a bad idea at the time).
Toronto also hired Mark Hunter as an Assistant GM and that certainly didn’t lead to any future controversy.
And speaking of lack of controversy, the Leafs also invited Brandon Prust to training camp. I wonder how he did. Did he make the team? Someone ask him.
Brad Treliving was also busy with some PTOs as he invited Chris Higgins and Jamie Devane to the Flames camp. (Reminder that Brian Burke was the President of Hockey Ops in Calgary at the time.) The Flames also signed Sean Monahan to a seven year deal that they certainly wouldn’t regret.
2015
The Maple Leafs brought back Jonathan Bernier for one more year with a contract in August of 2015. They also invited Devon Setoguchi to camp.
Brad Treliving re-signed Mark Giordano.
2014
Hey look it’s stuff that ended up paying off for the Leafs but is still largely “ho-hum” summer stuff. The Leafs signed William Nylander to his entry level contract and brought in a fresh face in Brandon Pridham to be the Assistant to the General Manager.
Brad Treliving started with the Flames in April of 2014 and by August he was also down to completing the dog days of summer type tasks with signing Devon Setoguchi as one does in August.
2013
Nada.
I think its safe to draw the conclusion that you can venture out into the woods and not worry about missing too much that is Leafs related. Maybe we’ll get a snazzy new All-Star logo or Justin Bieber might design a new alternate jersey, but the roster is likely the roster for the next month.
Are you a Blue Jays fan? It was a busy MLB Trade Deadline and we’ve got you covered year round over at bluejaysnation.com!
