Toronto Maple Leafs: The Petr Mrazek Experiment Is Over
Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender Petr Mrazek’s regular season is finished, which means his time in the blue-in-white could be over.
After signing a three-year deal worth $3.8M AAV with the Toronto Maple Leafs last offseason, Petr Mrazek was insurance for Jack Campbell.
Campbell was brilliant the season prior, but he was a pending UFA after the 2021-22 season, so Mrazek was brought in to steer the ship as a 1A/1B goaltender. With 10 years of NHL experience, you knew what type of goalie he was and you were expecting between 30-40 starts of above average goaltending.
Instead, he played in 20 games and was awful.
Mrazek finished with a 3.34 GAA and .888 SV%, which was well below his career average (stats: hockeydb.com). Of the five goalies that have played for the Leafs this year, Mrazek was clearly the fourth worst.
Toronto Maple Leafs Will Likely Trade Mrazek in Offseason
After injuring his groin, once again, Mrazek is finished for the season and likely finished with the Leafs.
Kyle Dubas has praised Mrazek for his bounce-back abilities, but he’s not coming back this year. Throughout his entire career, he’s only started 50 or more games twice and the last time he did was five years ago.
At $3.8M AAV, Mrazek is dead-weight right now.
Sure, it’s possible that he rehabs and gets back to average for next season, but Toronto is in their Stanley Cup window. They can’t take another risk on goaltending because that $3.8M needs to be given to a legit goaltender or another position instead.
As previously mentioned, Campbell is a pending UFA.
As a result, if he comes back healthy and has a good playoff run with the Leafs, he’s going to get paid. Whether it’s $2M or $5M, Mrazek’s money is going to have to go towards Campbell’s contract and the Leafs need to ship Mrazek away.
Erik Kallgren has been a solid goaltender with Campbell out and Joseph Woll has shown promise as well.
Both Kallgren and Woll only make $750K so it would be a huge advantage to the club to use them as the Leafs back-up and then sign Campbell to an extension.
Even if the Leafs gave Campbell a $4.5M deal, that would put Toronto at a lower cap-hit for their goalies than they had this season, with the idea of a Mrazek-Campbell tandem.
Next. Is This Year's Team Better Than Last?. dark
If you think Mrazek’s contract is unmovable, than you’re just wrong. Any contract is tradeable and Mrazek still has potential as a back-up or even starter for a bad team. The Toronto Maple Leafs aren’t in any issue by trading him and it could only benefit the roster, as it’ll give Kallgren and Woll a better opportunity to play more games.