Joshua, 29 years old, was a former 5th round pick of Toronto's back in 2014. It took him until 2022/23 to have his first full season in the NHL with Vancouver, after getting small tastes while he was with St Louis. This trade will make Hardev happy, as he's liked him for a few years now.

His career highs came in 2023/24 in both goals (18) and points (32), despite only playing in 63 games. Last year he had a bit of a down year and missed more games, but he had been dealing with testicular cancer. If he can refind the form that made him a revelation for Vancouver, he definitely fits the type of player Treliving and Berube seem to like, and will hopefully be a pretty good bottom six guy. If he winds up being a fourth liner, that's another expensive one that they've been accumulating.

Joshua's impacts are that of a bottom sixer. His defense and especially penalty kill are his bigger strengths, but aren't elite by any means. He is not much of a playmaker, and is better as a goal scorer.

As you may imagine, the bottom six is now incredibly crowded. Even assuming that Domi and Maccelli wind up being top sixers to start the year, Toronto has eight guys who are bottom six forwards under contract (or going through arbitration*)

  • McMann
  • Roy
  • Robertson*
  • Kampf
  • Laughton
  • Jarnkrok
  • Lorentz
  • Pezzatta

So with Joshua that makes nine guys fighting for six spots. Toronto was already heavily rumoured to shopping some of their depth guys that make multiple millions in cap hit, and Joshua's $3+ million cap hit for three more years also makes it a lot more likely for that to happen. Hell, we may find out about that shoe dropping by the end of this week too.

Welcome back to Toronto! Hope you recapture the magic from your breakout year.

Maple Leafs Trades