The Leafs organization has taken advantage of their endless bank account to take various risks on potential talent. Once again, this appears to be the case, as the Toronto Marlies announced the signing of TJ Foster to a two-way contract that will begin in the 2015/16 Season.

Foster wasn’t a particularly sought after prospect, but he’s young enough to take a flyer on. At twenty two years old, the right winger has five WHL and two CIS seasons under his belt. In his after-draft years, Foster had three consecutive 25 goal seasons with the Edmonton Oil Kings, wearing the A in his last year (2012/13). 

Since then, he’s played for the University of Alberta. While he started off slowly in his first year, he followed that up with 42 points in 28 games, leading his team in scoring. The University of Alberta has won the last two national championships, both with Foster on the roster, and he was named the Canada West player of the year for 2014/15.

That remains to be seen, to be honest. It’s really rare to see an AHL team sign a player for the following season this far in advance, and there wasn’t a lot of hype about him to begin with. At the same time, his production has trended upward, he’s still pretty young, and this doesn’t burn an NHL contract. Really, all it burns is money, which is quite frankly meaningless.