Shortly after his client’s seven-point game at the end of October, agent John Walters got a phone call from Maple Leafs senior director of player evaluation Jim Paliafito to ask what all the buzz was about.



Walters replied that he had begun to get a lot of the same kind of calls but that their plan was to play out the remainder of the season and make a decision at its conclusion.



He’d already been asked by one AHL team if his client was prepared to leave his OHL team behind and join them in-season because they lacked depth. The answer then was “Uhm, I don’t think we want to do that,” so Walters told Paliafito that unless the Leafs could offer his player an entry-level contract that they would have to submit their best AHL contract offer — and their development plan — and stand in line in May.



That call between Paliafito and Walters was the beginning of the realization of a different conversation Walters had with North...