Can the Toronto Maple Leafs Afford to Extend Van Riemsdyk
By Josh Tessler
According to TSN’s Darren Dreger, the Toronto Maple Leafs will have to offer James van Riemsdyk a 6 year contract worth 36 million to successfully extend him.
On Tuesday morning, Dreger joined TSN Toronto 1050’s Landsberg in the Morning and shared that he believed that the market value for van Riemsdyk would be a 6 year contract at 36 million. If the Toronto Maple Leafs choose not to re-sign van Riemsdyk, he’ll be a UFA on July 1st.
It’s no secret what van Riemsdyk has meant for the Toronto Maple Leafs this season. Currently, van Riemsdyk is tied with Auston Matthews as their top goal scorer with 19 on the year. Van Riemsdyk has also been great on the Toronto Maple Leafs’ power-play, as he has seven ppg so far this season. He’ll surely be missed if Lou Lamoriello and Brendan Shanahan fail to retain him.
Can The Leafs Afford JVR?
Van Riemsdyk offers the Leafs the luxury of a top-line player on the third line. One of the reasons people argue that the Leafs will never have a better chance to win than this year is that once you have to pay Matthews, Marner and Nylander what they are worth, you can no longer have a player like JVR in the lineup. If you didn’t have to pay rent, you could buy a nicer care. Same thing.
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JVR will be missed if he goes, but can the Toronto Maple Leafs afford to offer him a 6 year contract worth 36 million dollars?
It’s impossible to guess what it will cost to keep the Leafs young stars together, but is likely to cost around a third of the total cap to sign three players on an 18 man roster. When that happens it means having $6+ million third line wingers probably isn’t an option anymore.
How To Convince JVR To Stay For Less?
In the latest Editor in Leaf roundtable, I pitched that the Toronto Maple Leafs should look to make a trade at the deadline with the Carolina Hurricanes for defenseman, Trevor van Riemsdyk. Trevor, James’ younger brother, has had a great season so far with the Hurricanes and is one of the league leaders in corsi-for percentage with 55%.
Perhaps getting TVR could help the Leafs retain JVR at a more reasonable cost. Maybe not though, you only get one chance in your prime to get a huge contract and most players don’t pass that up.
Next: Pre-Trade Deadline Toronto Maple Leafs Roundtable
It’s reasonable to think a player might take less money to stay in a place where winning is likely, but it rarely happens in reality. The Leafs are almost certainly going to lose JVR. The only real question is if they cash him at the deadline, or keep him and treat him as their own rental.