Toronto Maple Leafs: Looks Like Alex Pietrangelo Will Hit Free Agency

The Toronto Maple Leafs are anticipating a big day tomorrow as the NHL Free Agent period opens up.

The Toronto Maple Leafs – and one assumes – many other teams will have their sites set on the biggest name on the market, Alex Pietrangelo, the captain of the St. Louis Blues.

After John Tavares (you may remember, the Leafs signed him) Pietrangelo is arguably the second best player to ever hit the open market, assuming he does.  As of writing this, Pietrangelo has not re-signed in St. Louis, and is on track to become a free agent tomorrow.

Obviously, if he is available, the Leafs will take a shot.

Toronto Maple Leafs and Alex Pietrangelo

It is ironic that the Leafs will be suiters for Pietrangelo given that the NHL media never stops talking about how many salary cap problems they have. The thing is, which I’ve been saying all along, and which Kyle Dubas reiterated yesterday in a press conference, the Leafs don’t have any bad contracts.

And they sure don’t have a cap problem.

What they have is $6.1 million in free space, and the flexibility to court the best and most expensive player available.  If the critics had it even half right, the Leafs wouldn’t be participating.

However, with Alex Kerfoot, Pierre Engvall, Justin Holl and Andreas Johnsson combining to make more than Pietrangleo will command, and with all being easy to move (should it come to that) the Leafs don’t really have a problem.

Kerfoot and Johnsson especially are nice depth pieces, but Pietrangelo is an annual Norris Trophy candidate who is among the NHL’s best and most consistent players.  If the Leafs really want to move some money, Freddie Andersen makes $5 million and you could probably replace him without hurting the team for much cheaper.

Elite players like Pietrangelo are generally not available unless you draft them, so the Leafs will have to take their best shot and let the chips fall where they may.  If the Leafs pull it off, they’ll have – by a wide margin – the best roster in the NHL.   I mean, they might anyways, but this would cement it.

As for all the talk about depth players – it’s really confusing to me.  It would be nice to add a Tkachuk or a top pairing bruiser, but depth players who play for ten minutes a night don’t generally make your team that tough to play against, no matter how tough of a player they are.

I consider all this talk just the Leafs telling their Burke-led fans what they want to hear, while meanwhile, they draft for skill and hunt skilled UFAs.

If the Leafs strike out on Alex Pietrangelo, expect them to have a quiet off-season and free agency period.  I predict they may take a flyer on Radko Gudas if he is cheap enough, and perhaps a fourth liner or two ala Jason Spezza will be in the offing.

But hopefully, by this time tomorrow, the league’s most unfairly maligned blue line will now be considered the objectively best blue line in hockey.  (Because, seriously, if there is a team that can match Rielly, Pietrangelo and Muzzin, do they also have Sandin and Lehtonen in the wings?).

Dubas pulled off the unthinkable two years ago (a move that, despite the most ridiculous of criticisms, is beyond reproach) so let’s see if he can do it again.