The NHL Draft is tonight, and the Toronto Maple Leafs are expected to be active, although no one really know what to expect.
The NHL draft starts tonight ( the subsequent rounds are tomorrow starting at 11 AM) and so far the Leafs have been quiet, other than re-signing Jason Spezza. The Leafs, as of right now, hold the #15 pick, which they acquired in the Kasperi Kapanen trade earlier this summer.
As the draft is online, no one really knows what to expect. Will there be a flurry of draft floor trades, like usual? Maybe not, but rumours, at least, have been circulating normally.
And of course, when there are NHL rumours, there is always a Toronto Maple Leafs angle to it.
Toronto Maple Leafs Pre-Draft Rumours
Rumors swirled on Tuesday morning about the Toronto Maple Leafs having interest in Wayne Simmonds. The TLeafs will obviously be active in free agency if they can make their team better, but does Wayne Simmonds do that?
As speculated in the tweet below by TSN’s Pierre LeBrun, the Leafs have “genuine interest” in Simmonds.
Hearing that the Maple Leafs have genuine interest in pending UFA winger Wayne Simmonds at the right price. They have him listed as a target once free agency opens Friday. Again, would need to be a reasonable contract for it to work. But Leafs have sincere interest there.
— Pierre LeBrun (@PierreVLeBrun) October 6, 2020
For the past few seasons, Simmonds and Toronto have been very connected. The former 30-goal scorer plays a type of style that would be beneficial on any hockey team, but especially the Leafs. However, at 32-years-old, coming off one of his worst seasons of his career, does it really make sense to acquire him?
In his last 85 games, he only has nine goals. For a player that used to score 20 goals in his sleep, that’s a terrible decline. But like every free agent the Leafs are going to go after this off-season, it all comes down to money.
Coming off a one-year $5M contract, Simmonds clearly isn’t worth that type of money, and even if he was, the Leafs couldn’t afford him anyways. It’s been eight years since Simmonds has made less than $2M per season, but do you think he would be willing to take a hometown discount to play for the Leafs?
The only reason it would make sense to acquire Simmonds is if he signed for around what Jason Spezza is getting because the team cannot afford to overpay based on a formerly good player’s reputation. I’ve always loved watching Simmonds play and would love to see him in the blue-and-white, but only on a cheap contract.
Freddie Andersen Isn’t Going Anywhere…Yet
During Kyle Dubas’ press conference on Monday, he discussed the Andersen rumors and essentially squashed the speculation that he was going anywhere. As shown in the tweet below, Dubas expects Andersen to be their starting goalie moving forward.
Kyle Dubas on Frederik Andersen: "As of this moment, yes, I expect him to be the starting goalie for our team."
— Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) October 5, 2020
Hints that he's unhappy about where the trade speculation originated and has addressed it directly with Andersen.
We’ve heard multiple GM’s over the years, in every sport, mention one thing and then they do something else, but Dubas seemed pretty certain they wanted Freddie as their starting goalie. After Robin Lehner re-resigned with Vegas for a similar cap-hit as Andersen, it wouldn’t be surprising if Dubas thinks he can re-sign Andersen to similar dollar-figure.
Leafs Will Be a “Tougher” Team To Play Against Next Season
In that same press conference, Dubas gave us a few nuggets that should be important to watch for in Free Agency. He mentioned that the team wants to get tougher, and although Simmonds could be that player like we mentioned before, there are a few other names to look for.
Kyle Dubas says the #leafs consider it a "priority" to become a harder team to play against. Plans to address that with new personnel acquired via trade or free agency.
— Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) October 5, 2020
The team walked away from Kyle Clifford, but who knows, they could still re-sign him. One name to watch for is two-time Stanley Cup champion Pat Maroon. Maroon was the gritty tough-guy for back-to-back Cup champion teams and understands how to win. From the way he was celebrating with Tampa Bay last week, he seems like a guy who would be great in the dressing room, too.
Who Are the Leafs Re-Signing?
The Leafs have until 5PM EST on Wednesday to announce which RFA’s they’ll be tendering qualifying offers to, so it’ll be interesting to see who they qualify and who they let walk.
Here are the following players who are set to become RFA’s:
- Ilya Mikheyev
- Frederik Gauthier
- Evan Rodrigues
- Travis Dermott
- Jeremy Bracco
- Max Veronneau
The only person I think they let walk would be Veronneau. Although he has a few NHL games under his belt, he’s a replacement player. In terms of the rest, I think they would like to see Mikheyev, Rodrigues and Dermott all in the starting line-up next season, with Gauthier being a fringe player.
As much as people like to joke about Frederik “The Goat” Gauthier, he’s shown that he can be an NHL-player or high-quality AHL player, so he’s worth keeping around.
The biggest question mark of the RFA’s is definitely Bracco. He scored 79 points in 75 AHL games in the 2018-19 season, but has never been given a chance at the NHL-level. At 23-years-old, the Leafs know the type of player he is, so either they bring him back to let him tear up the AHL again and he becomes a trade piece and potentially an NHL player, or they let him walk and move on from him.
Buckle-up Leafs-Land, it’s going to be a fun few days.