{"id":58311,"date":"2025-08-10T03:35:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T03:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/58311\/"},"modified":"2025-08-10T03:35:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T03:35:08","slug":"maple-leafs-urged-to-sign-matt-grzelcyk-to-pto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/58311\/","title":{"rendered":"Maple Leafs Urged to Sign Matt Grzelcyk to PTO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Toronto Maple Leafs have found unexpected success in the past by professional tryouts (PTOs) as a means for signing useful players. Last season, it was <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/p\/pacioma01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=nhltradetalk.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-08-09_hr\">Max Pacioretty<\/a>. In other seasons, it was <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/g\/gregono01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=nhltradetalk.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-08-09_hr\">Noah Gregor<\/a> and  Zachary Aston-Reese. The team is being urged to go this route again as GM Brad Treliving puts the final touches on the roster. <\/p>\n<p>In a recent post by Editor in Leaf, three candidates were mentioned, with one particularly interesting option \u2014 <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/g\/grzelma01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=nhltradetalk.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-08-09_hr\">Matt Grzelcyk<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Why Matt Grzelcyk for the Maple Leafs?<\/p>\n<p>Along with Andreas Athansiou and <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/s\/smithcr01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=nhltradetalk.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-08-09_hr\">Craig Smith<\/a>, Edward Eng writes, \u201c\u2026adding a potential puck-moving defenseman to enhance the Leafs\u2019 offensive potential from the back end could do wonders for the club going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He argues that the Leafs struggled last season with production from their blue line beyond star <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/r\/riellmo01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=nhltradetalk.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-08-09_hr\">Morgan Rielly<\/a>. He also notes, \u201cGrzelcyk could potentially be an elite quarterback on the power play for the Leafs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Now 31, he set a career high with 40 points (one goal, 39 assists) over 82 games last season. Interestingly, 15 of those points came on the power play.<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1000\" height=\"500\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Matt-Gryzelcyk-Maple-Leafs.jpg\" alt=\"Matt Gryzelcyk Maple Leafs\" class=\"wp-image-96802\"  \/>Matt Gryzelcyk Maple Leafs<\/p>\n<p>Grzelcyk remains unsigned. It\u2019s unclear why he\u2019s been unable to land a deal. Perhaps he\u2019s waiting for the right offer or simply hasn\u2019t been on anyone\u2019s radar. But, if he\u2019s available and for cheap, the Leafs would be wise to take advantage of this opportunity and offer Grzelcyk a PTO. They write, \u201cWith numerous teams still balking at offering the young 31-year-old a contract to date, it is time for Toronto to jump in and take advantage of the stagnant market and give the defenseman a shot.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His proven power play success would push Rielly and might add offense from the back end, something the team wanted with <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/m\/marnemi01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=nhltradetalk.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-08-09_hr\">Mitch Marner<\/a> now gone. <\/p>\n<p>Next: <a href=\"https:\/\/nhltradetalk.com\/matthew-tkachuk-weighs-surgery-decision-miss-regular-or-post-season\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Matthew Tkachuk Weighs Surgery Decision: Miss Regular or Post Season?<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/NHLTradeTalkweblogo4.png\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Toronto Maple Leafs have found unexpected success in the past by professional tryouts (PTOs) as a means&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58312,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,2364,448,82,2008],"class_list":{"0":"post-58311","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-matt-grzelcyk","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-top-story"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}