<\/p>\n
From Erie champion to Toronto cornerstone, Darren Raddysh is headed home.<\/p>\n
The 30-year-old defenseman was traded from the Tampa Bay Lightning to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday and, according to multiple reports, signed an eight-year, $68 million contract as part of the deal.<\/p>\n
Raddysh, who grew up in the Toronto area, returns home after establishing himself as one of the NHL’s top offensive defensemen and is coming off a career season in which he scored 22 goals and recorded a career-high 70 points.<\/p>\n
“We are thrilled to add a defenseman of Darren’s caliber to our organization,” Maple Leafs General Manager John Chayka said in a release. “Darren has emerged as one of the NHL’s premier two-way defensemen, combining elite puck-moving ability with poise, competitiveness, and strong play in all three zones. He strengthens our blue line in every situation and is exactly the type of player we want helping lead this team.”<\/p>\n
The move comes 14 years after Raddysh began his Ontario Hockey League career with the Erie Otters, where he developed into a key contributor on one of the most successful teams in franchise history.<\/p>\n
Raddysh helped the Otters capture the 2017 J. Ross Robertson Cup as OHL champions before embarking on a professional career that included several seasons in the American Hockey League.<\/p>\n
After working his way through the minors, Raddysh spent the past five seasons with Tampa Bay, developing into a two-way defensemen and earning the opportunity to return home as a key piece for the Maple Leafs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Erie champion to Toronto cornerstone, Darren Raddysh is headed home. The 30-year-old defenseman was traded from the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223533,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[97151,136,138,137,17019,4843,26108,10176],"class_list":["post-223532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-darren-raddysh","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-erie-otters","tag-nhl","tag-tampa-bay-lightning","tag-toronto-maple-leafs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}