'I Was Told His Knee Is Bone-On-Bone': What's the Story With New Maple Leafs' NHL Free Agent Acquisition Jani Hakanpaa?
According to Postmedia's Steve Simmons, Hakanpaa's injured knee is in rough shape but the Maple Leafs cleared him for signing.
Late Monday afternoon, word leaked that the Toronto Maple Leafs signed former Dallas Stars defenseman Jani Hakanpaa to a two-year deal worth $3 million. It seemed to be a good value signing for a 6-foot-7 defenseman.
There were some injury concerns, considering the player hadn't played since undergoing a knee procedure in March. Now comes word from Postmedia's Steve Simmons that Hakanpaa's knee is essentially "bone-on-bone with not much knee left."
Maple Leafs GM Brad Treliving spoke about Hakanpaa via Zoom on Monday when wrapping up the signings on the first day of free agency.
"A penalty killer, one of the areas looking back at last season we wanted to address was our penalty kill and that's an area Jani really shines in his ability to kill penalties. You saw that in Dallas over the years and specifically this past season," he said. "We've got a group of defensemen. I'd rather have too many than not enough. And we'll try to sort this out in the coming days."
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According to Simmons, the Leafs have told him that their doctors cleared Hakanpaa. What is interesting to note is that the Maple Leafs have not officially sent a news release regarding Hakanpaa's signing, despite speaking about him and the reports of his addition.
The official roster has the other defensemen the Leafs signed (Chris Tanev, and Oliver Ekman-Larsson) on Monday. It also shows Dakota Mermis, who was added on Tuesday, but Hakanpaa is not there at the time of publishing at 8 a.m. ET on Wednesday.
Is it possible the Leafs decided to sign Hakanpaa in haste? Teams have access to medical reports before making decisions on players.
Until the Leafs officially announce Hakanpaa's signing and he's officially on the team's roster that he isn't on the team just yet. Treliving did say he'd rather have too many defensemen instead of not enough. Perhaps this is worth the risk? It is, if nothing else, odd to say the least.
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