Why Cayden Primeau and Sammy Blais are Maple Leafs

If you were thinking the Toronto Maple Leafs were comfortable with their depth situation, you were wrong. The Maple Leafs were surprisingly active with waivers claims on Monday picking up Cayden Primeau and Sammy Blais while Henry Thrun, Matt Benning, Michael Pezzetta, and Dakota Mermis cleared, following William Villeneuve and David Kampf who previously cleared.

The questions here is why these two players, what do they bring to the table, and where do they fit in. The easiest one to understand is Cayden Primeau.

Primeau has been a highly-touted goaltending prospect for a number of years that hasn’t been able to put it together at the NHL level despite having strong AHL results. The Leafs can easily fit him into the mix while Joseph Woll is on leave and with Dennis Hildeby still being waivers exempt the Leafs have a good opportunity to take a look at Primeau in the meantime and see if he can realize his potential in the new situation.

Primeau’s NHL track record hasn’t been great, but he had a promising 2023-24 with a .910 save percentage over 23 games, but last season he dropped to an .836 save percentage in 11 games, which is part of the reason why the Canadiens moved on from him. Primeau did still manage a .927 save percentage in 26 AHL games last season and that upside was enough to get him signed by the Hurricanes who were always going to waive him. The fact that they claimed Brandon Bussi is a sign that the Canes aren’t too concerned about bringing Primeau back and that along with Primeau having the second worst Goals Saved Above Expected/60 in the league last season make it seem possible to get Primeau down to the Marlies in the near future.

Primeau as a 6-foot-3, 26-year old with a diminishing upside makes more sense for the Leafs than James Reimer at this point. If Curtis McElhinney and Curtis Sanford have signed off on Primeau as potential project worth exploring, he’s at least an interesting choice, and if the Leafs’ goaltending gurus believe in him, that could explain why he was claimed over other interesting candidates like Michael DiPietr0 and Nicolas Daws.

The reason why the Leafs claimed Blais comes from his familiarity with Craig Berube. He was a staple of Berube’s time in St. Louis to the point of the Blues re-acquiring Blais from Rangers. When Berube left, Blais’ time in the NHL also ceased and he spent last season on the Abbotsford Canucks. After being signed by the Canadiens, the door has now been opened for a reunion with Berube and he will comfortably fit into the 13th/14th forward spot for now given the demotion of Kampf and the injury to Laughton.

That’s the why and the where, but there is still the matter of who Blais is. Blais is potentially another Steven Lorentz, fitting an archetype of hard working fourth liner beloved by both Treliving and Blais.

Blais, over a full season, is generally good for around 200 hits a year while not taking too many penalties. There isn’t much in the way of offensive upside here, but Blais isn’t a slouch by fourth line standards and he even received some powerplay time over his career.

Overall, he’s a low event player that might see the opposition get more chances with him on the ice, but those chances haven’t turned into an excess of goals, so Berube gets his comfort player back.

Blais isn’t an immediate use player for the Leafs, but as Toronto figures things out and potentially moves on from others like Calle Jarnkrok, Nick Robertson, and/or David Kampf, the idea of using Blais on the fourth line starts making sense.

In the summer of 2024, I floated the idea that Berube would welcome a reunion with Blais, and while it’s taken a year to get to that point, the appeal of having depth that the coach feels comfortable with clearly matters more than upside.