#1. Leafs Go Bargain Shopping
The Leafs will be shopping like me next week when they hit Free Agency. They’re going to do everything they can to sign a player for $750K that ends up worth $2-3M by the end of the season.
Similar to what the Leafs did with Jason Spezza last year and many others, I’d expect the team to sign a number of different players to a one-year league minimum contract. In terms of players available that may want to sign in Toronto for a one year deal, here are a few names to look at:
- Jason Spezza
- Justin Williams
- Corey Perry
We all know that Spezza wants to return to the Leafs next year, so if he’s willing to take the league minimum again, I don’t know why Toronto wouldn’t sign him. He’s a great leader and showed he can still play during the qualifying series. At $750K for one season, it makes so much sense to sign him again.
Williams is a very interesting experiment. Having already retired once, he decided to return to the NHL and take one more crack at a Stanley Cup with the Carolina Hurricanes. Although they didn’t win a Cup, he was a productive player in the minimal games he appeared in. Similar to Spezza, Williams is a local kid (Coburg, ON) and has a ton of family and friends in Toronto. Assuming he’s willing to take the league-minimum, the three-time Stanley Cup champion and former Conn Smythe winner could be an unbelievable leader and mentor to the young kids on the Leafs.
You can see a theme here with bargain shopping. Perry grew up two hours east of Toronto in Peterborough and has already thought about becoming a Leaf in the past. Back in 2015, Perry thought about signing in Toronto to play in front of family and friends, before ultimately deciding to return to Anaheim. Now that he’s 35-years-old, with little time left in his NHL career, he may want to live closer to home and experience the lifestyle of playing for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Whether or not any of these players actually sign in Toronto, expect the Leafs to sign a few players like the guys I mentioned to bargain contracts next week.