The Toronto Maple Leafs Have No Intention of Re-Signing Jake Muzzin or Tyson Barrie

The Toronto Maple Leafs made some bold moves this summer.

Those bold moves were not as expensive as they could have been. The Toronto Maple Leafs paid a low first rounder to get out of Patrick Marleau’s contract, and they accepted Codi Ceci as the cost to get out of Brown and Zaitsev’s deals.

They continued on their path to a “studs and duds” salary cap structure by picking up value laden league minimum players like Spezza, Shore, Agostino and Wilson.

Finally, they traded Nazem Kadri to the Avalanche for Alexander Kerfoot and Tyson Barrie, who, along with fellow pending UFA, they most likely have no intention of re-signing.

Why would they?

The Avs Trade

Everyone assumes that this trade was about Tyson Barrie, but it’s not.  Kerfoot gives the Toronto Maple Leafs a player more suited to the limited minutes of a third line centre, but one who is so good defensively that he’s sure to get top-six minutes on the wing when necessary.

Kerfoot represents the last thing the Leafs needed – a defensive forward in the mold of Marian Hossa (though obviously not that good).  They’re hoping for their very own Nino Niederreiter.

He comes in cheaper than Kadri and is a better fit to the lineup, and he’s younger, cheaper and signed for longer.  It’s a win on five fronts.

The Leafs also received a bonus in this trade in the form of a half-priced Tyson Barrie. Now, Barrie got lots of points and he’s a right hander (although, for the record, the Leafs preferred the left handed superior defensively T.J Brodie) with a big name, so everyone thinks he was the point of the trade.

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But he wasn’t.  He was just a nice bonus and I’ll put my physic rep as the guy who wrote this infallible piece on the line to tell you that the Leafs have no intention of ever signing him (or Jake Muzzin) to a contract extension.

Eight million dollars for Tyson Barrie? Give me a break.   Any kind of raise for the 30  year old Muzzin?  Double pass.

Kyle Dubas didn’t achieve the best salary cap situation in the NHL by giving out contracts like he was Lou Lamoriello.

No doubt Barrie is a nice piece.  He won’t score 59 points from the 2nd PP unit, and he will make fans longingly yearn for Jake Gardiner’s defense, but he’s a great player.

But the Toronto Maple Leafs don’t intend to sign him.

Toronto Maple Leafs and Barrie: One and Done

And they don’t intend to sign Jake Muzzin either.  (Note that this is based on logic and common sense, and not any kind of inside information).

Barrie is 28.  The only way it makes sense to sign him is if you think he’s a hall of famer destined to stay great into his 30s (newsflash: he isn’t).  Otherwise, the aging curve makes giving big money to a player on the start of his decline a mistake.

Add in the fact that he’s a useful, but not amazing, one-dimensional player (a great dimension though) and you know it’s never going to happen.

At $2.5 million, the Leafs have upgraded Ron Hainsey by about a 100% for a million dollars less.  It’s a massive win.  They aren’t about to ruin all the work they did this summer by saddling them with an eight million dollar cap hit for the next six years on Tyson Barrie.

Never going to happen.  Barrie is a rental, nothing more.

And other than the one-dimensional part, you can say all the same things for the slightly older, slightly better, Jake Muzzin.

The Leafs are loaded up for a run at the cup.  And, by the way, $2.5 for Tyson Barrie is probably the best value on a contract in the NHL. I don’t think anyone who isn’t on an ELC is even within ten miles.

But like James van Riemsdyk, Tyler Bozak, Ron Hainsey and possibly (but hopefully not) Jake Gardiner before him, the Toronto Maple Leafs will let Barrie and Muzzin walk for nothing at the end of the season.

This is always a hard sell to fans, but it’s the right move.  Re-signing a player to a bad deal just because you’ll lose him is pure folly.  Trading him away in the midst of a cup run is just plain stupid.

Furthermore, the cap space he clears up is valuable.  In Barrie’s case, it won’t be much, but again, you’ve already got him on easily the best contract in hockey.

Quite Literally the only way to be an annually good team in the NHL’s Salary Cap Era is to be willing to let players walk for free.  It is a proven fact that most teams do not understand the concept of keeping pending UFAs, so not only is this a strong strategic move, but it is also an error that your opponents make that can be exploited.

All the value the Leafs need to get from Tyson Barrie in order to win this trade will be from this year.  Same goes with Jake Muzzin.

The Leafs won both these trades hands down, and they do so even though I can guarantee you that they full intend to let both players walk at the end of next season.

By next season, Travis Dermott will be better than both Barrie and Muzzin, and he’ll be re-signed for half the cost of Muzzin.  The Leafs will still have Rielly on a preposterously team-friendly deal.  They’ll have both Liljegren and Sandin making the league minimum.

And they’ll have the combined salary of Muzzin and Barrie – $6.5 million – to go shopping for a new still-in-their-prime defenseman.

People will be annoyed by this, but it’s the correct move in a cap world.  Enjoy Muzzin and Barrie while they’re here – they won’t be for long.