Ryan Reaves May No Longer Have A Place on the Toronto Maple Leafs

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Alexander Cole
January 11, 2025 (3:25 PM)

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Toronto Maple Leafs enforcer Ryan Reaves has not been particularly useful this season and it is clear that his entire role is starting to die out within the sport.

On Tuesday night against the Philadelphia Flyers, it was expected that Ryan Reaves would fight Garnet Hathaway following the situation with Jake McCabe.

However, nothing happened and Reaves did practically nothing for the entire 60 minutes. This has subsequently led to questions about his role with the Leafs and the NHL as a whole.

Ryan Reaves is not cutting it for the Toronto Maple Leafs

In a brilliant piece for Sportsnet, hockey writer Michael Amato argued that perhaps Reaves is done in the NHL entirely.

Why? Well, it really boils down to the fact that there are no other enforcers left for Reaves to have a fight with.

Reaves was inserted into the lineup for the rematch with the Flyers on Tuesday, where one assumed a scrap with Hathaway would be inevitable. Nothing materialized, though, other than a brief verbal exchange between Reaves and Hathaway near the benches. This is the other issue with Reaves' role: he's reliant on someone from the opposition to oblige him for a fight. There are very few Ryan Reaves' left in the NHL at this point and he doesn't have many counterparts around to square off with.

Amato went on to argue that for the rest of the season, the Leafs probably won't have very much use for Reaves, barring injuries.

It's going to become increasingly challenging to insert Reaves into the lineup, even for a coach like Craig Berube, who scratched and clawed his way to 1,000 games in this league playing a similar role to Reaves. In today's NHL, every player's performance has to justify their salary and the percentage of the cap they occupy, and there really isn't an argument with enough merit to make for Reaves.

In 27 games this season, the enforcer has a total of two points, which just isn't enough to justify his spot on the team.

Putting him in the minors wouldn't really do much and trading him might just prove to be impossible.

Simply put, the Leafs are in no mans land when it comes to Reaves and there is very little they can do to change that.

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JANVIER 11 \| 272 ANSWERS Ryan Reaves May No Longer Have A Place on the Toronto Maple Leafs Do you believe Ryan Reaves still has a place on the Toronto Maple Leafs?
YES	94	34.6 %
NO	178	65.4 %
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