'Working Through That': Maple Leafs GM Brad Treliving Updates the Status of Jani Hakanpaa

Speaking at the unveiling of Auston Matthews as the new team captain, the Leafs GM hopes the Hakanpaa situation will be health sooner rather than later.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are making a captaincy change. The Hockey News breaks down why Auston Matthews will become the 26th captain in franchise history.

What's the deal with Jani Hakanpaa?

Speaking on Wednesday as the Toronto Maple Leafs unveiled Auston Matthews as their new team captain, Leafs GM Brad Treliving was asked about the status of the defenseman who is not currently officially on the team's roster.

"(We're) working through that," Treliving said. "Today we're dealing with this but we'll get to that hopefully sooner rather than later."

When free agency opened up earlier this season, multiple reports surfaced that the Leafs were signing the Finnish defenseman to a two-year deal worth $3 million. Treliving spoke about the addition of Hakanpaa.

"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 on July 1. "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."

But after a couple of days, Postmedia's Steve Simmons reported that he spoke to multiple people who said that the knee injury that forced the defenseman to miss the later stages of the season was essentially "bone-on-bone" but that Leafs doctors had cleared him.

As the days passed, Hakanpaa's name never appeared on the Maple Leafs' official roster and things took an interesting twist when he showed up to a Finnish golf tournament wearing a Stars jersey.

Hakanpaa was limited to 64 games last season but hasn't played since Mar. 16. He was skating during the Stars' run to the Western Conference final but never appeared in a playoff game.

The Leafs have a projected salary cap space of $1,275,333 on a roster 21 players according to PuckPedia.com. The Leafs could accommodate the space.

The Hockey News reached out Hakanpaa's representation and received no clarification on the player's status.