{"id":432758,"date":"2026-01-28T16:23:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T16:23:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/432758\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T16:23:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T16:23:16","slug":"maple-leafs-place-dakota-mermis-on-waivers-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/432758\/","title":{"rendered":"Maple Leafs Place Dakota Mermis On Waivers \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ahead of their game against the Sabres tonight, the Maple Leafs placed defenseman\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/m\/mermida01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.prohockeyrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-27_hr\">Dakota Mermis<\/a>\u00a0on waivers, per <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/FriedgeHNIC\/status\/2016225546313609511?s=20\" rel=\"nofollow\">Sportsnet\u2019s Elliotte Friedman<\/a>. Today marked the end of an <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.prohockeyrumors.com\/2026\/01\/maple-leafs-assign-dakota-mermis-on-conditioning-loan.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">extended conditioning loan to the AHL<\/a> for the defender, who was on long-term injured reserve, meaning they had to either activate him or designate him as waivers non-roster.<\/p>\n<p>Mermis came to the Leafs as a free agent signing in 2024. He signed a new two-year deal last summer to extend his stay in the organization. Still, this is the third time they\u2019ve placed him on waivers since landing him. They were unsuccessful the first time, losing him to Utah in December 2024, but they reclaimed him a few weeks later when he ended up back on the wire, and they haven\u2019t lost him since.<\/p>\n<p>He cleared waivers successfully to begin this season and was yo-yoed between leagues for the first month before sticking on the Leafs\u2019 roster from the beginning of November onward due to their rash of injuries on defense. That bug ended up biting Mermis in December, sidelining him for over a month with a lower-body injury until he was able to get back to action in the minors a couple of weeks ago.<\/p>\n<p>While Mermis\u2019 conditioning loan began a while back, multiple extensions were granted and he didn\u2019t end up getting into game action until last Sunday, recording a -1 rating and two shots in an overtime loss to Providence. It was just his third AHL appearance of the season, as he\u2019s spent most of his time up with the Leafs or on IR.<\/p>\n<p>With\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/s\/stechtr01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.prohockeyrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-27_hr\">Troy Stecher<\/a>\u00a0in the mix now and\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/t\/thrunhe01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.prohockeyrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-27_hr\">Henry Thrun<\/a>\u00a0seemingly set to stick around as a press-box option with <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/m\/myersph01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.prohockeyrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-27_hr\">Philippe Myers<\/a>\u00a0for the time being, Mermis\u2019 services aren\u2019t needed on the NHL roster. The 32-year-old, who has 466 AHL appearances across 10 seasons in the minors, will now get to add to that tally on a more consistent basis in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n<p>In 11 NHL contests for the Leafs earlier this year, the 6\u20190\u2033 lefty had one goal, a -3 rating, and a 46.9 CF% at even strength while averaging 13:02 of ice time per game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ahead of their game against the Sabres tonight, the Maple Leafs placed defenseman\u00a0Dakota Mermis\u00a0on waivers, per Sportsnet\u2019s Elliotte&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":432759,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[19792,5,31,405],"class_list":{"0":"post-432758","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-dakota-mermis","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-toronto-maple-leafs","11":"tag-transactions"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115973653355326825","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/432759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}