The Toronto Maple Leafs trimmed their training camp numbers on Wednesday, and goaltender Patriks Plūmiņš is the name worth watching among the group headed back to junior.
Leafs PR confirmed the moves late Wednesday afternoon, closing the book on this year's Prospect Challenge for four players who came to camp on invite.
Rylan Fellinger returns to Flint. Brody Pepoy heads back to Saginaw. Cooper Williams is back with Saskatoon.
Plūmiņš goes to Chicoutimi, and that one carries the most weight given how Toronto found him in the first place.
The same afternoon, four amateur tryout players got the other kind of news. Sebastian Charvát, Matyas Man, Parker Vaughan and Nic Whitehead were all released from their ATOs.
An amateur tryout is exactly what it sounds like. You show up, you audition, and more often than not you go home without a contract in hand.
Does cutting four tryout invites before rosters even take shape make headlines on its own? Not really. But it clears the runway for who actually matters here.
Why the Plūmiņš assignment is the one to track
Toronto took Plūmiņš in the fourth round of this year's draft, a Latvian goaltender who played his draft season in his country's top pro league.
That path almost never produces NHL goalies. He's only the second player ever drafted straight out of it, and the first one turned into a legitimate NHL starter in Vancouver.
His calling card came at the U18 World Championship, where Daily Faceoff's Steven Ellis flagged a 43-save outing as the best game of his year.
Plūmiņš posted a .947 save percentage and a 1.62 goals-against average across five games at that tournament, numbers that do not happen by accident.
Chicoutimi took him in the CHL Import Draft, and now he gets a full season on North American ice to find out if that form travels.
Toronto could use a goalie to believe in down the line. The Leafs allowed 299 goals last season, a number that still stings for a franchise that hired Jim Hiller as head coach in June.
Hiller inherits a group still figuring out its identity, and prospect camp decisions like these are the small print before the real roster fight even starts.
None of the eight players cut loose Wednesday are promised another look from Toronto. Camp doors close fast in September, and not everyone gets a second knock.
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Is Patriks Plūmiņš the most important goalie prospect in the Maple Leafs system right now?
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