{"id":778186,"date":"2026-07-03T18:49:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T18:49:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/778186\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T18:49:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T18:49:13","slug":"maple-leafs-re-sign-vinni-lettieri-add-three-others-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/778186\/","title":{"rendered":"Maple Leafs Re-Sign Vinni Lettieri, Add Three Others \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Toronto Maple Leafs announced the signings of four players today: forwards Vinni Lettieri<\/a> and Henrik Rybinski<\/a>, defenseman Cole McWard<\/a>, and netminder Samuel Hlavaj<\/a>. The financial terms of the deals were not disclosed other than the fact that Lettieri and Hlavaj have signed one-way contracts, while Rybinski and McWard received two-way deals. We covered<\/a> McWard\u2019s signing as a report yesterday.<\/p>\n

Of this batch of signings, the biggest name is Lettieri. The former AHL All-Star had a hugely successful first season in Toronto, potting 14 goals and 42 points in 55 regular-season games. He made his mark in the playoffs, posting 11 goals and 26 points in 23 postseason contests. His efforts helped the Marlies capture a Calder Cup championship, the first of his nearly 400-game AHL career.<\/p>\n

Since his professional career began in full during the 2017-18 season, Lettieri has been valuable high-level organizational depth for five different NHL clubs. The speedy forward, who can play center or along the wing, has been a stellar AHL scorer throughout his professional career and has shown himself to be capable handling spot duty at the NHL level. While he\u2019s usually skated in the NHL in a fourth-line capacity, he has managed to log 155 career NHL games.<\/p>\n

With Toronto aggressively pursuing a return to the playoffs after enduring a nightmare 2025-26 season, re-signing Lettieri helps the club lock in a key depth piece in advance of an extremely important season.<\/p>\n

To help bulk up the team\u2019s depth in the crease, the Maple Leafs have added Hlavaj, a 25-year-old goalie who was non-tendered by the Minnesota Wild. The undrafted Slovak import played two seasons in a tandem role in the Wild organization, spending most of his time at the AHL level with the Iowa Wild. Across 58 career AHL games played, Hlavaj has a 21-25-9 record, 3.02 goals against average, and .897 save percentage.<\/p>\n

Hlavaj is likely best known around the hockey world not for his contributions at the club level, but rather for being the No. 1 goalie for Slovakia\u2019s senior men\u2019s team. Hlavaj first took up the role in 2023-24, going 3-2 with a .925 save percentage in five games during the 2024 IIHF Men\u2019s World Championships. He resumed his role in Olympic qualifying the next season, going 3-0 with a .929 save percentage. He followed that up with a .912 save percentage at Worlds in 2025.<\/p>\n

While he has been strong at the World Championships, Hlavaj\u2019s best performances were arguably at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano-Cortina. Hlavaj saved 39 of 40 shots in Slovakia\u2019s upset over Finland at the start of the tournament, made 46 saves in a loss against Sweden, and saved 25 of 27 shots in the team\u2019s win over Germany.<\/p>\n

While the Slovaks lost to the United States and Finland in the knockout rounds to exit without a medal, Hlavaj\u2019s performances allowed him to make a name for himself in international hockey. He\u2019ll hope to carry over some of that momentum to the club level.<\/p>\n

Of the three signings that had not been previously reported, the name likely least recognizable to hockey fans is that of Rybinski. That\u2019s not to say the 25-year-old winger has not had a solid career thus far, as he has developed into a capable middle-six scorer at the AHL level.<\/p>\n

Rybinski has hit at least 30 points in each of the last two seasons, and posted a career-high 35 points in 2024-25. The former Seattle Thunderbirds star has played exclusively with the Hershey Bears thus far and won a Calder Cup with the club in 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Toronto Maple Leafs announced the signings of four players today: forwards Vinni Lettieri and Henrik Rybinski, defenseman…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":778187,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[49,48,88191,275772,14116,275773,82,746,88987],"class_list":["post-778186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cole-mcward","tag-henrik-rybinski","tag-players","tag-samuel-hlavaj","tag-sports","tag-toronto-maple-leafs","tag-vinni-lettieri"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778186","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=778186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/778187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=778186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=778186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=778186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}