Leafs acquire Nick Paul from Lightning for Hildeby, picks
A name that Leafs Nation knows all too well will be donning the blue and white.
On the opening day of NHL free agency, the Toronto Maple Leafs acquired forward Nick Paul from the Tampa Bay Lightning. In exchange, the Lightning are receiving goaltender Dennis Hildeby, a fourth-round pick in the 2027 NHL Draft, and a 2028 third-round pick.
TRADE: We’ve acquired forward Nick Paul from the Tampa Bay Lightning
It’s another big addition for the Maple Leafs, who have seemingly gone from a team heading toward a rebuild to all of a sudden trying to contend for a top spot in the Atlantic Division.
Paul is a player the team is very familiar with. He started his NHL career with the Ottawa Senators during the 2015-16 campaign, spending parts of seven seasons with Toronto’s provincial rival before being traded to the Lightning ahead of the trade deadline during the 2021-22 campaign. It was during that postseason that Paul became a hero in Tampa, scoring both of the Lightning’s goals against the Leafs in Game 7 of their first-round series.
In his four-plus years with the Bolts, the Mississauga, Ont. native has been a key two-piece in the team’s lineup. He reached the 30-point mark in four straight seasons, including a pair of 40-point outputs with Tampa. This past year, injuries limited him to just 51 games, resulting in Paul notching only 7 goals and 15 points. He was in the lineup during the Stanley Cup Playoffs, appearing in six of Tampa’s seven games against the Montreal Canadiens, but didn’t manage a point as the Bolts fell to the Habs.
Paul is heading into the fifth season of his seven-year contract, which he signed with the Lightning in July 2022. The deal has a cap hit of $3.15 million. In 537 regular-season games in the NHL, he has scored 104 goals and 110 assists for 214 points, with another 14 points in 45 playoff games.
The Leafs were willing to part with Hildeby because of the big move they made earlier in the day: signing Vezina Trophy-winning goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky to a three-year contract. Hildeby has the tools to be a backup to Andrei Vasilevskiy, having played a lot with the Leafs last year due to their injury woes in net. In 20 games, he went 5-7-4, with a 2.86 goals-against average, a .914 save percentage and one shutout. He also had a 10-8-8 record with the American Hockey League’s Toronto Marlies, notching a 2.71 GAA and a .898 SV%. He played second fiddle late in the year to Artur Akhtyamov, as the Marlies would go on to win the Calder Cup.
In 26 appearances in his NHL career, Hildeby has a record of 8-10-4, with a 2.98 GAA and a .904 SV%. He has two more years on his three-year contract, which carries a cap hit of $841,667 through the 2027-28 season.