Tuesday: Hutchinson has cleared waivers. The Maple Leafs have already recalled Kaskisuo and didn’t take long to send Hutchinson to the AHL.
Monday: Michael Hutchinson has been placed on waivers today. It appears as though his opportunity as the Toronto Maple Leafs backup goaltender is over, as Bob McKenzie of TSN expects Kasimir Kaskisuo to be called up to take the role.
It’s been a nightmare season so far for Hutchinson, who lost his fifth start last night after giving up four goals to the Chicago Blackhawks in the first period. The Maple Leafs only really play their backup in back-to-back situations, giving Hutchinson the short end of the stick each time, but his .879 save percentage simply hasn’t been good enough.
That’s not to say that Kaskisuo will fare any better, given he has never appeared in an NHL game previously. The 26-year old was an undrafted free agent signing out of the University of Minnesota-Duluth and only really started to find minor league success during last season’s playoff run with the Toronto Marlies. He has a .928 save percentage this season however and has been a rock in net for the AHL club.
For the Maple Leafs, there is some chatter that they could look elsewhere for a different option in net. David Pagnotta of the Fourth Period tweets that they have looked at the market, even reaching out to Scott Darling before he decided to go overseas. The problem is their cap situation that will only really allow the backup to earn a minimum NHL salary of $700K. The team does have some potential flexibility given Mitch Marner will be out at least a month with an ankle injury, but that will come to an end when the star forward returns. Any move for a more expensive backup would complicate things quite a bit.
Welcome to the Alligator Pit, Kasimir Kaskisuo, UMD-Bulldog Hockey!
About time! Genius GM has backed himself int a corner.
By having to pay the good players what they are worth?
That is very subjective isn’t it.
They aren’t worth that much though the Other RFA contracts signed after Matthews and Marner show that those two alone are currently overpaid approximately a combined 4 million
They are not paid what they’re worth. They are overpaid by at least 2 million.
All y’all making generic comments when if they were drastic overpays you should be able to point to more specifics. If they overpaid by total $2 million, that isn’t a lot of wiggle room anyway. If it’s $4 million on Matthews and Marner, I’d ask for receipts.
I would say “well he can’t be worse than Hutch” but that’s entirely possible when it comes to Kaskisuo.
Well, Kaskisuo has been in the pipeline for a couple years now at least. Age 26 and has been very good with the Marlies this season and last including an outstanding playoff run. So now is the time to see what the Finnish/NCAA product can do with the Leafs at the NHL level. Definitely not going to be easy playing in front of a team as defensively horrible as Toronto. Any such success would be great for the club going forward, knowing you have 3 younger guys behind Freddy who can hopefully play and fill the void.
If he’s not the answer to the solution (and like Sparks and Hutchinson – won’t be his fault first and foremost given how Babcock treats his backups and being thrown to the dogs) how important does Freddy become and what happens if he gets injured which I feel is going to happen at some point given the way this season has gone?
Don Cherry was placed on waivers yesterday so he is available.