Leafs Make First Wave of Roster Moves

With the London Rookie Tournament now a thing of the past, it’s about time for the Toronto Maple Leafs to decide the fates of their rookie class. The team took the first step towards that today, making its initial wave of roster moves.

Seven players have been released to join their junior teams. Up front, Bradley Latour will return to the Oshawa Generals head to the Windsor Spitfires, Scott Eansor goes to the Seattle Thunderbirds, 2014 4th round pick J.J. Piccinich will join the London Knights, and 2015 7th round selection Nikita Korostelev was returned to the Sarnia Sting.

On defence, Cameron Lizotte heads to the Peterborough Petes. Brendan Miller is listed as going “back to junior” in the release, but at his age and with an AHL contract in place, this is probably an error and I’d expect him on the Marlies. Justin Nichols will return to the Guelph Storm.

Four invited prospects managed to impress enough to get a chance at the main camp including 20-year-old RW Michael Joly, 20-year-old D Nikolas Brouillard, 19-year-old Aiden Jamieson, and 20-year-old Lucas Peressini. While none will make it to the Leafs, it gives the organization some time to decide whether they’d like to sign them to Entry Level Contracts or AHL/ECHL deals.

Many players that are a part of the organization will continue to play in main camp, including William Nylander, Mich Marner, Kasperi Kapanen, Frederik Gauthier, Martins Dzierkals, Nikita Soshnikov, Dmytro Timashov, Carter Verhaeghe, Travis Dermott, Stephen Desrocher, Cody Donaghey, Matt Finn, Andrew Nielsen, and Rinat Valiev. Garret Sparks, who wasn’t originally placed on the tournament roster but played in last night’s win against the Penguins, was not mentioned in the press release but will also join the Leafs at main camp.

Marlies signings Nikolai Skladnichenko, TJ Foster, Jack Rodewald, and Brady Vail round out the list of surviving players. Training camp opens with medicals and photo ops on September 17th at Mastercard Centre.