Samuel Ersson may never play a game for Maple Leafs after trade

The headline was that the Toronto Maple Leafs traded Joseph Woll to the Philadelphia Flyers on Tuesday.

The subtext was that defenseman Emil Andrae is coming back to the Leafs in the deal. And the question mark? Samuel Ersson.

Ersson is a goalie, and the main reason the Leafs traded Woll was that they have too many NHL-ready goalies in their organization.

What happens to Ersson, then? 

Well, there's a chance he never actually plays for Toronto.

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Ersson is a restricted free agent. For the Maple Leafs to keep him, they'd have to extend a qualifying offer to him.

That's not a given in this case.

If a team does give the qualifying offer, they then can match any offer sheet given to their player by another team.

Without a qualifying offer, Ersson would simply turn into an unrestricted free agent.

Maple Leafs GM John Chayka was noncommittal when asked about Ersson's qualifying offer on Tuesday:

Re: Ersson, I asked GM John Chayka if the #Leafs intend to qualify him (He's an RFA). Says he and Curtis McElhinney will discuss their plans in the coming weeks.

The Flyers essentially wanted Ersson off their books, and Toronto decided it would take the chance to at least think about keeping Errson.

They may not do it, which would be ironic more than it would be negative.

He would just end up having quite a short Maple Leafs tenure, if they don't give him a qualifying offer.

That's still to be decided, though.

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