No. 3: Freddie Andersen
The rise and fall of Freddie Andersen was pretty quick in Toronto. His five-year, $5M AAV contract was a steal when he was acquired by Anaheim, but he was eventually replaced by a goalie who had never been a starter before.
When you’re constructing a hockey team in the salary-cap world, it’s incredibly important to get as much value out of your players, especially when you have four forwards making $40M combined. Now that the team trusts Jack Campbell as their starting goalie, it makes zero sense to re-sign Andersen, as his number will be way too high.
Campbell makes $1.65M, which is a steal for a number-one goalie, so they can now use the $5M that they were paying Andersen, on a cheap 1B netminder and spread the money throughout the lineup.
At 31-years-old, Andersen still has a lot of hockey left in him, and personally, I think he’s going to perform well wherever he goes. His workload and injuries have been a huge concern with Toronto and it’s really hurt his play on the ice.
If he uses the offseason to rehab and finds himself in a tandem situation where he only has to play 40 games per year, I think he would be very useful. However, the Game 7 baggage and his high price-tag is too much for Toronto to consider re-signing him, when they value Jack Campbell so highly.