John Chayka is still tinkering. The Maple Leafs general manager has already reshuffled the coaching staff, traded for Darren Raddysh, and brought in Sergei Bobrovsky this offseason. Now he’s adding a familiar postseason face to the forward group.
Colton Sissons is signing a two-year deal with Toronto worth $4.25 million per season, according to TSN’s Darren Dreger. The contract locks in a 32-year-old center who has spent the last 12 seasons bouncing between Nashville and Vegas. He’s not the flashiest pickup, but the Leafs are clearly chasing something specific: playoff experience.
Sissons has that in spades. He made his NHL debut with the Predators back in 2013-14 and was part of Nashville’s only Stanley Cup Final run in 2017. That spring he put up six goals and six assists in 22 postseason games. Not bad for a guy taken 50th overall out of the WHL’s Kelowna Rockets back in 2012.
Two Cup Finals in Three Years
After a dozen years in Nashville, Sissons was traded to the Golden Knights last offseason alongside Jeremy Lauzon in exchange for Nicolas Hague and a conditional 2027 third-round pick. He played 66 regular season games for Vegas, scoring six goals with five assists. Then came another deep playoff run. The Golden Knights made it to the Cup Final but lost to the Carolina Hurricanes. Sissons added two goals and two helpers in 22 postseason games there.
So in the last three years he’s been to two Stanley Cup Finals. The Leafs haven’t gotten out of the first round since 2004. You can see the logic.
Career numbers: 756 games, 101 goals, 131 assists. He’s not a scorer, not really. But he kills penalties, wins faceoffs, and plays the kind of grinding, details-heavy game that coaches trust in May. Toronto has tried adding skill before. This feels like something different.
Chayka is betting that Sissons can help change the room’s mentality. Whether that works or not, the Leafs are clearly sick of the same result.
Leave a Comment