Previously sitting at the 50-contract maximum, the Maple Leafs have freed up two Standard Player Contract slots by moving Carter Ashton and David Broll for the closest thing to a bag of pucks in hockey trade terms.
Broll, a sixth rounder in 2011, was signed to a pro contract earlier than expected (just a month after getting drafted), and was tracking along fairly promisingly after finishing his junior career in Sault St Marie and having a pretty good rookie season with the Marlies, as well as coming up for a five-game stint with the big club to start the 2013-14 season. He has not been himself at all this year, consigned to the ECHL after going pointless in 21 games and, most worryingly, failing to impact games physically, which had previously garnered the attention of Leafs brass.
Randy Carlyle never had any time for Carter Ashton and nothing changed in that regard since Horachek took over the bench. He’ll get his last chance at an NHL career with the team that originally drafted him in the late first round back in 2009 in the Tampa Bay Lightning. Ashton will be 24 come the end of the season, and despite some dominant stretches with the Marlies, and flashes of promise as a potentially effective bottom six forward in the NHL, leaves the Leafs having still not scored his first NHL goal.
With Brad Ross (a 2nd round pick) getting suspended for PEDs and sent home by the Leafs with his career in limbo, Tyler Biggs going nowhere fast with the Marlies, and David Broll and Carter Ashton gotten rid of, these aren’t exactly positive developments for the Leafs organization, considering they haven’t been able to find any NHL value out of a series of prospects Leafs fans were all at-least mildly hopeful about. However, they obviously need the SPC flexibility given the player movement expected in the coming weeks and months.
