Toronto Maple Leafs Trying to Trade Ilya Mikheyev Rights

The Toronto Maple Leafs appear to be moving on from Ilya Mikheyev.

News came today, via Elliotte Friedman, that the Toronto Maple Leafs have informed other teams that they are open to trading Ilya Mikheyev’s rights before free-agency.

The Leafs wouldn’t get much in this situation, but it might be worth it for another team to get a solo negotiating period with the 27 year old now likely former-Leaf.

At best I feel like this move might get them a sixth round pick, but that’s not really the news. The main news here is that Mikheyev is done in Toronto.

Toronto Maple Leafs and Ilya Mikheyev

The Leafs signed Mikheyev as a UFA out of the KHL prior to the 2019-20 NHL seasons. (stats naturalstattrick.com).

Mikheyev was a pleasant surprise that year, scoring 23 points in 31 games before a gruesome arm injury cost him the season.

The next year Mikheyev struggled, despite being given lots of minutes with Toronto’s best players. Near the end of the season he wasn’t given those opportunities and he asked to be traded after the season ended.

Instead of trading him, the Toronto Maple Leafs promised to give him a regular role, and while it wasn’t in the top six, he did establish himself as a great threat from the third line, who is versatile and good defensively, and who can chip in with some offense.

Where he really established himself, however, was on the penalty Kill, where he scored four goals and was the third most prolific player in the league, in that category.

Mikheyev is a solid two-way player who is not  a star and likely will never be a star.  He is a very good depth player, but it is not worth paying money to very good depth players.  Better to use a bad depth player and use the savings to get another high-end player.

At last year’s salary, Mikheyev was part of what made the Leafs so hard to play against – after dealing with their star players, their bottom of the lineup players (Mikheyev, Engvall, Liljegren,Sandin then Giordano) were among the best in hockey.

But with the inevitable raise he will get – likely around $5 million annually – he won’t be good enough to exceed his contract, which is all you really want from players who aren’t in your core.

The Toronto Maple Leafs will definitely miss Mikheyev at first, but the fact that they’ve identified so many cheap free agents who have gone onto success over the last several years really takes away from the loss.

Like the Leafs did with Mikheyeve himself, and like they did with with Kampf, Barabanov, Engvall, Bunting, Spezza, Giodano etc. the Leafs strength is to be able to identify players who will sign cheap and outperform their deals.  The fact that they can do this means it is likely the best move to regain a pick for Mikheyev and move on with someone who has a ceiling higher than their contract, which he will no longer have.