What if James van Riemsdyk Doesn’t Care about $$$?

Toronto Maple Leafs forward James van Riemsdyk is a pending un-restricted free-agent.

The Leafs acquired James van Riemsdyk back in 2012 in exchange for Luke Scheen.  In retrospect, this is one of the greatest trades in Leafs history.

The Leafs not only heisted James van Riemsdyk for a stay-at-home defeseman, but the Flyers had, before trading him, locked him up for his entire prime at what turned out to be an absolute bargain of about $4 million per season.

During his time in Toronto, JVR played six seasons and, if you adjust the one injury season and the one lock-out season, he scored 31, 30, 27, 29, 29 and 33 (and counting) goals.   He is one of the NHL’s rarest players: a guaranteed 30 goal scorer.

What if He Stays?

James van Riemsdyk is said to be on his way out of Toronto. Conventional wisdom suggests that he is going to be too expensive for the Leafs to re-sign without sacrificing the ability to sign Nylander, Matthews and Marner to long-term deals.

This is probably true, besides which, it’s never a good idea to give max-length deals to players entering their thirties. Even if the Leafs could sign JVR to a reasonable, affordable extension, he is 28 and it’s not worth paying him $7 million into his 30s, even though someone definitely will be willing to.

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But here is a crazy idea: What if JVR put other things ahead of money? What if he’s a decent guy?  Pro athletes have short windows in which to make money, and since if they don’t maximize that window, the money just gets kept by billionaires who don’t need it.  So we all tacitly agree that every athlete should be as greedy as possible, if not for himself, but for the other guys in the league.

What if, however, someone just came out and said “You know what? I’m already ridiculously, filthy rich, and I have other priorities.”  Even if the tax man took half of it, JVR should still have banked around $15 million in his life, so he hardly needs any more.  The guy is a filthy rich fat-cat.

So what if he decides that playing on a team poised to win multiple championships is better than having some extra money that he won’t even notice either way, since he has so much already?

If he gave the Toronto Maple Leafs a team-friendly extension, or better yet, signed an expensive short-term deal, he’d get all the benefits of staying on the NHL’s best team, in it’s best city, while still retaining the title of filthy rich fat-cat.

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We all just assume athletes will chase the money, but some of them have to be actual decent human beings, so let’s just chill and see what happens.