Hours after the Dallas Stars moved the contract of Matt Dumba to Pittsburgh, the Leafs moved Ryan Reaves to San Jose in exchange for defender Henry Thrun. the 38-year-old Reaves has one year left on his contract making $1.35 million and played out two of the three years given to him by Leafs GM Brad Treliving.

Maple Leafs Acquire Thrun from San Jose | Toronto Maple Leafs
The Toronto Maple Leafs announced today that the hockey club has acquired defenceman Henry Thrun from the San Jose Sharks in exchange for forward Ryan Reaves. Thrun, 24, skated in 60 games with San Jose in 2024-25, registering two goals and 10 assists. The 6’2, 210-pound defenceman has appeared in
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Reaves' role on the team slowly, and then quickly, disappeared over the course of the season. He was tasked with "protecting the stars" and developing an off-ice culture that brought the whole team together, as he had anecodtally done in other cities.

Reaves ended up playing only 35 games for the Leafs last year wherein he did not score a goal, dished out 103 hits, engaged in only one fight, and took four penalties. Reaves' role as occasional on-ice enforcer has seemingly been replaced with the free agent signing of Michael Pezzetta.

Coming in to the Leafs is 24-year-old Henry Thrun, a left shot defender who is 6'2", 210 lbs. He was the odd man out on San Jose's defense with eight players they wanted to play signed to contracts. Thrun makes $1 million and is an RFA with arbitration rights next summer. This will be the first year Thrun requires waivers, as well.

Looking at Thrun the player, his overall numbers are gawdy so I won't repeat them here. Those front line results can sometimes be explained by team and teammate, especially playing on San Jose and his most common defense partners being Cody Ceci, Jan Rutta, and Timothy Liljegren. Unfortunately bad players make a bad team and Thrun was the worst of the lot on the Sharks.

Overall, Thrun was played in third pair minutes and wasn't on either special team regularly. Thrun was also given fewer defensive zone shifts relative to his teammates. It seems he wasn't relied on by his coach to do much of anything. When the season was over and the Sharks had traded away Walman and Ceci, Thrun played on the "first pair" with Liljegren only for the last couple games of the season. It also surprised me to find Thrun didn't block shots at a high or even average rate when that quality has been a staple of defenders that Brad Treliving has acquired.

From this San Jose review from last season, Thrun was described as sometimes having moderately good days, but then many really awful ones. His skater stat cards are hard to watch, and line up with that assessment.

Skater | HockeyStatCards.com
HockeyStatCards.com

Conclusion

It's good business the Leafs got rid of Reaves who did not have a role on this team. It's good business for San Jose to get rid of a defender they didn't want to play when they had too many. I'm not sure what San Jose is going to do with Reaves (I don't really care because they took him full freight). The asset the Leafs got back was losing that contract without any damage to their books, either in a buyout, retention, or buried salary.

Thrun's contract is fully buryable. We'll see if he can make the team out of camp, but pre-camp his odds are very long. The Leafs have six guys they're very confident in, seven if you count Phillipe Myers, whom I think the Leafs hold in high regard. And on the left side there's also Dakota Mermis. Let's just say I don't think he's taking Simon Benoit's job, who at the very least blocked shots and made hits.

Maple Leafs Trades