Elliotte Friedman just reported that Benoit-Olivier Groulx has been placed on waivers, a quiet move for the Maple Leafs on a day that has been anything but quiet.
The timing is what makes it noisy. A separate report this afternoon says Nikita Kucherov would be willing to land in Toronto, and the Maple Leafs are 8-6-2 through 16 games.
Friedman posted the update on Monday, noting simply that Groulx went through unclaimed.
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Groulx, a 26-year-old center, played 7 games this season without a point. He has 10 points in 85 career games, which explains why no team felt the need to grab him.
The Maple Leafs won their last game 4-2 in Vancouver on Saturday. They host Utah on Tuesday, and Jim Hiller will have his lineup set with Groulx now off the waiver wire.
Nothing in the sheet says where Groulx goes next or what the roster plan is. That part stays unanswered for now.
What the Kucherov report actually says
According to the report, a source said Kucherov would not arrive through a trade with Tampa Bay. "Toronto is the more realistic option," the source said. "Not a trade. He will just go there in the summer."
That points to free agency. Kucherov's contract runs through 2026-27 and he is set to be a UFA at expiry, so the timeline fits. But it remains a report, and none of it is confirmed.
Our earlier piece on Kucherov's reported decision to join the Maple Leafs laid out the same caution, and it still applies.
The player himself is not slowing down. Kucherov has 18 points in 13 games for a Lightning team that is 8-3-2 and sits 4th in the Atlantic. That is not the profile of a star looking for the exit in a hurry.
Tampa Bay is coming off a 5-4 shootout loss in Nashville and hosts Detroit on Tuesday. Kucherov will have to answer questions about all this again.
If the summer talk is real, Toronto has to decide how much of its roster plan to build around it. For now, a fringe center clearing waivers is the only thing that actually happened.
Would Nikita Kucherov in a Maple Leafs jersey make Toronto a real contender?
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