The Toronto Maple Leafs Have No Concern About an Offer Sheet

The Toronto Maple Leafs haven’t yet worked out a contract with their young restricted free agent defenseman, Rasmus Sandin.

The Toronto Maple Leafs went into the offseason needing to re-sign three RFAs. They’ve already taken care of inking Timothy Liljegren and Pierre Engvall.

Now, their attention has turned to locking up Rasmus Sandin.

General Manager Kyle Dubas negotiated a two-year deal for 23-year-old Liljegren with a $1.4 million AAV.

He is likely looking to sign Sandin to a contract with a similar annual value. Ideally for the Maple Leafs, they manage to sign the defenseman, who is one year younger than Liljegren, to a longer term deal. However, there’s a good chance that for Sandin to entertain more years, he would be looking for more money. That’s because the Swede looks like he is close to breaking out as a legitimate top four NHL defenseman.

A short term allows Sandin to prove his worth before going out and demanding it.

The Toronto Maple Leafs and Rasmus Sandin

Other teams certainly see the potential in Sandin and could very well want him on their blueline. One way to bring him over to another organization is via offer sheet. It’s a seldom used tactic that would require draft picks go the other way in a transaction.

According to Capfriendly, any team who offer sheets a player to an contract with an AAV of $1,386,491 to $2,100,742, would then be required to send a third-round pick back in compensation. That team would need to own that pick in the upcoming draft, meaning the Buffalo Sabres, Calgary Flames, Carolina Hurricanes, Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars, Florida Panthers, Minnesota Wild, New Jersey Devils, New York Rangers, Ottawa Senators, Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins, San Jose Sharks, and Washington Capitals are all ineligible to provide an offer sheet at that tier.

There is also a very good chance that the Maple Leafs would match any deal at this level. But there is almost no chance a team actually signs Sandin, because offer sheets are just not used very much.

With the Leafs currently spending beyond the salary cap, they would have a lot of trouble fitting in a large ticket. A team could offer Sandin a single year $4.2 million deal. That should be a number too high for the Leafs to match. It would also make Sandin an unrestricted free agent at this time next year allowing him to sign anywhere he’d like but allow the offer sheeting team a full year to negotiate a contract extension.

The value is far beyond what the  Leafs and even other teams would likely want to pay Sandin, but it would force Dubas to shed some salary elsewhere if he wanted to keep the rear guard. An offer sheet at this size would almost certainly mean Sandin’s time with the Maple Leafs is up. But then again, why would any competitive team do this to their salary cap, and what would any non-competitive team be interested in Sandin for one year at an inflated value?  It’s not going to happen.

Offer Sheets rarely happen because they usually don’t make sense from a strategic standpoint. I suppose the Leafs are aware of the possibility, however, with the infrequency of this strategy being used, they don’t  need to worry too much about this becoming a reality.

Hopefully, Dubas and Sandin’s camp are able to hammer out a deal in the coming days that work well for both sides.