Leafs sign Harri Säteri, Petr Mrázek on waivers ahead of the deadline

This is a bold, bold move by Dubas.

Petr Mrázek was signed by the Maple Leafs in the summer to a three-year deal with an AAV of $3.8 million.

The Leafs can only gain $1.125 million if he clears, and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of chance that someone takes him on without being asked nicely with some sweeteners.

That small amount of space might be the only consolation the Leafs get.

We’ll know more tomorrow at 2 pm, when he is either claimed or he clears.

In the meantime, the Leafs have also tried a bold move with the signing of former NHL goalie Harri Säteri. Säteri has been in the KHL this year, but terminated his contract and returned to Finland recently.

As explained in our FAQ today, Säteri has to clear entry waivers first, so the results of that will be known tomorrow too.

This is the explanation from that post with an example to help you understand entry waivers:

Okay, back to Ho-Sang, though, if the Leafs signed him, wouldn’t he have to go through waivers?

No, not unless the Leafs wanted to send him back to the AHL. All players who aren’t exempt need to clear waivers to be assigned to the AHL. When you sign someone on an AHL deal to an NHL contract, he is in the NHL until you reassign him.

That’s entry waivers, right?

Nope. That’s just regular old waivers that continue on past the deadline to the playoffs. Entry waivers only apply to players who have played in a league outside North America and who are signed as free agents (not off the reserve list).

Entry waivers are not for the purposes of assignment to the AHL. If Säteri clears, he is not in the AHL. He’s in the NHL.

He was formerly with the Panthers, and the Red Wings, and seemed like a hot prospect who never quite made it as an NHL goalie. He’s been with Sibr Novosibirsk (Dmitri Ovchinnakov’s team) for two years.

He was their starter, and left after one playoff game played.

At 32, it’s not very likely he suddenly becomes an NHL starter or even serious backup, but he’s got a more meaningful track record than Källgren. And an Olympic gold medal.

In other slightly related news:

Update: as detailed in the comments below, the net effect on the Leafs of all these moves is that they will be under the salary cap and not using LTIR by tomorrow at 2 pm. A trade of Travis Dermott improves that, and that is likely as far as they can go since they can’t send down Rasmus Sandin or Timothy Liljegren and go below six defenders. If Jake Muzzin is coming off of LTIR and is healthy, they can send one down.

The ability to use prorated cap space to add players is huge. If Dubas can get that up to $2 million, he has room for something near $10 million in cap hits.