The Toronto Maple Leafs have signed Philippe Paradis to a professional contract. He will report to the Toronto Marlies now that Shawinigan has been eliminated from the QMJHL playoffs. RDS reported on his signing this morning:

L’attaquant des Cataractes de Shawinigan Philippe Paradis a signé son premier contrat professionnel avec l’organisation des Maple Leafs de Toronto.

Premier choix des Hurricanes de la Caroline en juin 2009, les droits de Paradis avaient été échangés aux Maple Leafs en retour de Jiri Tlusty.

Paradis s’est rapporté ce matin aux Marlies de Toronto de la Ligue Américaine

He'll be reporting to the Toronto Marlies today and could possibly be in the lineup. This works well because I will be at the game with Eyebleaf. Paradis was acquired in December from the Carolina Hurricanes for Jiri Tlusty. Hockey's Future has the following scouting report:

A mixture of physical presence and scoring skill, Paradis is an attractive prospect. He possesses a hard shot and has the ability to make room for himself and his teammates on the ice. Paradis isn't a player to back down from a challenge. Already an intriguing medley of grit and ability, if Paradis gets faster and stronger, he could become a dominant force in the QMJHL.

His development range is 4.5 to 6.5 which means that he'll likely be anywhere from a top 6 Marlie to a third liner on the Leafs. Below is video of Brian Burke the day of the trade discussing Paradis. He describes Paradis as having good foot speed, proper levels of truculence, and as a prototypical power forward.

Chemmy, in keeping with his usual optimism, politely disagrees with Burke's assessment:

It's good that we signed useless guys like Brayden Irwin to protect our useless but younger prospects like Paradis.

His statistics definitely do not blow anyone away but as has been noted before the cheapest way to fill out a team's bottom two lines is to develop those player within. Paradis' playoffs were a rather short affair as Shawinigan went out in six but he did have a decent impact based on CarlPeelash's playoff review:

Philippe Paradis, LW, Shawinigan Cataractes - 1st round, 27th overall in 2009 (CAR)

Paradis and the Cataractes were eliminated in six games by Victoriaville, with the former 1st rounder picking up three points in those six games. He also tied for 5th among Q forwards in hits, dishing out 18.

At the time of the trade Carolina Hurricanes fans were pretty surprised that the team had given up on Paradis so quickly after taking a flyer on him in the first round. Below there's a video from the draft.