The Toronto Maple Leafs made a splash this week signing free agent Alexander Barabanov and although the signing looks good now, the team has made many mistakes over the years.
No matter what off-season it is, Toronto Maple Leafs fans are glued to their TV’s on July 1st hoping that they acquire the best free agent available.
For years, fans were hoping to acquire a top-line center like Brad Richards or Steven Stamkos, but for whatever reason the team could never win the star sweepstakes: until 2018, when John Tavares came home.
Tavares was the biggest free agent available and fans had prayed that he would leave Long Island and return to his hometown. Competing against the Boston Bruins, San Jose Sharks, Dallas Stars, Tampa Bay Lightning and New York Islanders, the Leafs were one of six teams in the hunt for the future Hall-of-Famer.
But then on July 1st, 2018 at 1:06PM, fans went nuts with one tweet:
Not everyday you can live a childhood dream pic.twitter.com/YUTKdfMALl
— John Tavares (@91Tavares) July 1, 2018
Tavares’ dream of becoming a Leaf was about to become a reality. Twitter went nuts with over 106,000 people liking this tweet, and the fan-base was overjoyed with excitement.
Although this is an example of a good free agent signing, the Leafs are more known for the opposite. Like every other NHL team, you’re going to hit the jackpot sometimes, but also hit Double-Zero on the Roulette table more often than not.
You can have the best scouting department in the league but sometimes it doesn’t work. The player could have scored 40 goals in the NHL with another team but for whatever reason can’t perform when he gets to yours.
Also, within the Salary Cap world everything comes down to money. Two players could score 20 goals and have 60 points, but if one player is making $2 million more per season, that player will get run out of town because he should have scored 30 goals and had 75 points.
Free Agency is a blast because you expect so much out of every signing, and mediocrity is unacceptable.
However, here are the top five worst free agent signings in Toronto Maple Leafs history.