The Toronto Maple Leafs are rumored to be close to a deal that would lock up Nikita Zaitsev for seven years.
Nikita Zaitsev is a player the Toronto Maple Leafs signed as a UFA out of the KHL. He is 25 years old. When his deal is finished, he will be finishing his age 32 season.
Assuming Zaitsev deal gets done, it would have to be AAV less than Morgan Reilly's $5M AAV. If I were guessing, $4.5M, give or take $250K.
— Bob McKenzie (@TSNBobMcKenzie) March 31, 2017
That means that the Leafs have effectively locked him up for his entire prime. Considering what we’ve seen from Zaitsev so far, his profile, and the cost of the deal I have to say, I like it.
Zaitsev has played 76 games, has four goals and 36 points. For the most part, he’s seen extremely tough top-line minutes and exhibited himself well.
Zaitsev leads the Leafs in minutes played this season. Despite a high number of those minutes being against the best the NHL has to offer, his CF is just below 50%. His PDO is 98.91, so he could have slightly more points if he was a bit luckier.
As it is, he leads his team in even-strength scoring (among defensemen) and is only 4 points behind Jake Gardiner in total points.
His defense is not great, but 40 point defenseman don’t grow on trees. Also, he shoots right and is 6’2. A right-hand shooting, 40 point puck-mover? Signed through his entire prime at a fairly cheap annual cap hit? Yes please.
Toronto Maple Leafs Win Big
This is a steal for the Leafs. If Zaitsev improves – not unlikely for a rookie – then the Leafs will have gotten a very team friendly deal. If this is the best it gets, then the rumoured $4.5 is fair value. Should he decline and become overpaid, well, right-hand shooting defenseman who can move the puck and have size are pretty much always in demand and it’s likely he can be moved easily.
This means that the Leafs have picked up a core piece of their team without giving away any assets. This is a low-risk, high-reward situation, and yet another in a series of excellent moves by Maple Leaf management.
The question is, now, where do they go from here?
With this deal, the Leafs will have their three best defensemen locked up through the 2018-19 season, after which Gardiner will be a UFA.
So, for the foreseeable future, the Toronto Maple Leafs have three core, above-average defensemen locked up. This is really good, but the problem is the Leafs are still missing that big-name number one.
To that I say: Who cares.
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You can’t go crazy paying Taylor Hall prices for #2 defensemen. If you sign one (true #1s are few and far between anyway) he’ll be on the back-end of his prime and screw up your cap for years.
That means you only have one option: Build a core of very good players on value deals. This is what the Leafs are doing. They have three + Connor Carrick (on an ELC through next season) makes four. Ideally, you’d like to get someone who moves everyone else down a notch on the depth chart, but six above average defenseman is a lot more realistic of a goal.
If the Leafs add one more player equal to or better than Gardiner/Zaitsev/Rielly, they’ll have a top-four that rivals anyone (maybe not Nashville or Washington, but mostly everyone). There is no reason to think they can’t do that.
And here’s the kicker: Zaitsev, Reilly or someone in their system we don’t even suspect could turn out to be their #1. No one thought Subban, Stralman, Keith or Weber were going to be elite, but it happened. The Leafs can get lucky. And if not, they’re at least being smart.
Signing Zaitsev is a great move.