The Leafs carry a big prospect pool. They use more of their 90-man reserve limit than a lot of teams. We saw that play out when one of last year’s unranked prospects, out of 46 players under 25, was traded to the Edmonton Oilers and immediately given an NHL contract.
Okay, you might think the Oilers are bit dumb for signing Nolan Vesey, but the reality for that team is that they only have 66 names on their reserve list and only 43 NHL contracts used, and that includes Vesey. For them, they have lots of space to sign a guy they’ll almost certainly play in the AHL to an NHL deal.