Travis Dermott traded to Vancouver

We all saw this coming, but it’s still going to be strange to see him go.

Travis Dermott — drafted by the Maple leafs in 2015 after a clever-seeming set of pick-trading deals by Kyle Dubas — has been traded to Vancouver. The four players acquired by the Leafs in the Cody Franson and Mike Santorelli trade with Nashville (directly and via pick trades) have now all left the Leafs organization. Dermott is the only NHLer. Travis Konecny was taken with the first-rounder the Leafs sent to the Flyers in the deal that started the chain of trades.

The writing was on the wall when Travis Dermott signed his extension last summer ahead of the expansion draft. The Leafs needed all their bases covered for any eventual claim by Seattle, so the quickly locked up Dermott to a two-year deal with an AAV of $1.5 million. That’s fine, as far as it goes, but the salary structure was backloaded, and the deal expires in 2023 with Dermott, now only 25, as an RFA due a qualifying offer of $1.75 million. That’s pushing into too much for a player who has never risen off the third pair.

He’s been in and out of the lineup on the Leafs the last two years and has been clearly supplanted now by all of Rasmus Sandin, Timothy Liljegren and Ilya Lyubushkin.

On Vancouver his hope will be to grab hold of a permanent lineup spot and keep it. (They just rooked the Sens into taking Hamonic, so that might be right now he manages that.)

Good luck, Travis. We’ll always have those T25 arguments to remember you by.