No. 2: Pierre Engvall
If Engvall was five inches shorter, he probably wouldn’t have had such a long leash in the Toronto Maple Leafs organization.
However, the fact that he’s 6-foot-5 and 215 pounds makes him someone that you want to see succeed.
Engvall is essentially like Subway. It’s fine, it’s not that expensive and you’ll eat it if there’s nothing else available and you’re in a rush. However, you’re not looking forward to it and going there on your birthday like a steak house.
His $1.25M contract isn’t an issue, but it kind of is for the Leafs. For $750K, you may as well just put Joey Anderson on the fourth line. He’s a lot smaller, but he’s chippy, can skate and can provide the same type of value for Engvall but for almost half of the price.
In a fourth line role, especially on a cap-strapped team, you don’t want to pay anyone over $1M. As such, shedding Engvall’s contract would be ideal and it wouldn’t be that hard to trade him.