G Aaron Dell
LW Jonathan Dahlen
G Garrett Sparks
LW/RW Martins Dzierkals
SJS saves 1.15 mill in cap space next year. Leafs get a backup who has a more proven track record than Sparks but struggled this year, and a prospect they'll know from his days in Utica. Dzierkals has also struggled a little bit, but SJS would be familiar with him from when they drafted Balcers and Cutske, plus Dzierkals was up for rookie of the year in the KHL. Gives everyone a fresh start and SJS gets the cap space to use elsewhere.
In games which were the second of back to backs:
Dell 2017/18 - 6 GP 3.28 GAA 0.897 SV
Dell 2018/19 - 12 GP 3.74 GAA 0.865 SV
Sparks 2018/19 - 13 GP 3.40 GAA 0.896 SV
In all other games:
Dell 2017/18 - 23 GP 2.44 GAA 0.919 SV
Dell 2018/19 - 13 GP 2.50 GAA 0.911 SV
Sparks 2018/19 -7 GP 2.56 GAA 0.917 SV
Dell "struggled" this year because he was given a lot of games that were the second of back-to-backs. He hadn't been given many of those games previously, and when he had been it was usually because that was facing the easier team. He would likely do no better than Sparks did in a situation where he is playing almost exclusively the second of back-to-backs - but costs much more. This is another situation where Babcock sets up a player to fail and then the fans hate the player.
