Jason Demers Trade Frustrating for Maple Leafs

The Maple Leafs attempted to acquire Travis Hamonic this summer from the Islanders.

Apparently, the Maple Leafs offered James van Riemsdyk in exchange for the former Islanders defenseman, but balked at adding additional parts.

Hamonic eventually went to Calgary.  Had the Maple Leafs acquired Hamonic, they likely wouldn’t have signed Hainsey, and Hamonic would be Rielly’s new partner.

Personally, I think the Leafs were right to bail on the ask for Hamonic. Sure, the price for defense is crazy high, but Hamonic is a puck mover who doesn’t exactly suppress shots, and the Leafs are not hard up for puck moving defenseman.  Sure, he’d be an upgrade over what they have on the blueline now, but with JVR in the lineup and a lesser Dman on the blueline, they’re probably still a better team right now.

But considering the cost of Hamonic, the Leafs have to be frustrated with the Jason Demers trade.

Demers > Hamonic

Jason Demers might be two years older than Travis Hamonic, and he has a three-quarters of a million dollar more cap hit ($4.5), but he is a significantly better player.

Demers’ main value comes in suppressing shots, and this is something the Maple Leafs could really use.  Certainly a high-quality shot suppressor would compliment Morgan Rielly nicely.

But it’s insane to think that JVR wasn’t enough to get the Leafs Hamonic, but the fourth line player known as Jamie McGinn was enough to land Demers with 12% of his salary retained.

In retrospect, this has to make Toronto very happy that they declined to acquire Hamonic, but it’s got to drive them nuts that after pursuing a right-handed defenseman for so long, that one would get traded for next to nothing.

Did the Leaf even get a chance to bid on Demers?  I’d love to know. It seems unlikely that they couldn’t have beaten the offer the Coyotes made for Demers.  Then again, maybe the Leafs have a reason to not like Demers.

Certainly I don’t claim to know everything. They can information I don’t have, it’s not impossible.  That said,  the price was so, so low, and Demers is objectively better than what they have.  Perhaps with Hainsey in the fold, and the need to balance winning with continuing to develop players, there just wasn’t the room on the roster.  Who knows?

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One Thing Is Certain

If nothing else, we can now put to bed those ridiculous claims that you’d have to trade Nylander to get a good right-handed defenseman.  The Taylor Hall trade looks even crazier today, and the cost to get a defenseman just went way, way down.

This can only be a good thing.  It’s certainly debatable what JVR’s value is considering he’s a pending UFA – but one way to look at is this:  cap space is pretty valuable on its own.  Wouldn’t you rather have one season of JVR and then $5 million dollars to spend, than have over $4 million tied up paying McGinn + a portion of Demer’s salary?  I don’t think JVR’s UFA status is the detriment to his value some say.

Next: 3 Predictions for the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2017-18

Bottom line is this: If you can get a quality top-four defenseman for Jamie McGinn, you sure as heck can get one for some combination of JVR and Bozak.

Info from capfriendly.com