Leafs place veteran defenseman on waivers, former Leaf claimed by St. Louis
The waiver wire is buzzing with the trade deadline only a few days remaining as we saw the other day with Chris Tierney being placed on waivers by the Florida Panthers only to be claimed by the Montreal Canadiens, the Pittsburgh Penguins then placed Kasperi Kapanen on waivers yesterday, and the Toronto Maple Leafs announced they have placed Jordie Benn on waivers today.
The veteran defenseman has played in 12 games for the Maple Leafs this season, scoring a goal and chipping in with an assist, while skating 15:48 TOI - his highest totals since 2019-20. Benn has sporadically suited up for Toronto this season but got a shot when the team was down several marquee defenseman in the early parts of the season.
He played 6 games between the 12th of November to the 23rd of November. The played a few games in late December, before playing 4 more in mid-to-late January. He last played against the New York Rangers on the 25th of January, skating 10:53 and finishing the game as a minus 1. The Leafs have their full compliment of defensemen with the exception of Jake Muzzin.
As for Kasperi Kapanen, he found himself in hot water with the Pittsburgh Penguins with only 7 goals and 20 points in 43 games, General manager, Ron Hextall, placed him on waivers yesterday and he was claimed earlier today by the St.Louis Blues. The 26-year-old has had some success in his NHL career when he scored 20 goals and 44 points in 78 games in 2018-19 and even 30 points in 40 games in 2020-21 with the Penguins.
The Blues are seemingly playing things aggressively again even though they traded Vladimir Tarasenko and Ryan O'Reilly and have been taking calls on Colton Parayko and Justin Faulk. They have entered the race for Timo Meier as well and claiming Kapanen is a low-risk-high-reward move with 20+ games remaining in the season.
