Toronto Maple Leafs: What Will Happen with Rasmus Sandin?

The Toronto Maple Leafs still haven’t come to terms with restricted free agent defenseman, Rasmus Sandin.

The team has indicated that they believe Sandin will be a big part of their future, but  CapFriendly.com projects the Toronto Maple Leafs to currently be $1,493,116 over the salary cap with a 22 player roster.

The Leafs can go over the cap by up to $8.2 million in the off-season, so there is technically nothing stopping them from signing Sandin at this point, though they clearly have to move one or more players out.

Most of the rumours revolving around what a contract for Sandin would look like project him to sign for between $1.5 million and $2.2 million.  However, Elliotte Friedman recently reported that Sandin and his agent were looking for something similar to Adam Boqvist’s $2.6 million three year deal.

What Will Happen with Rasmus Sandin and the Toronto Maple Leafs?

There are a few things that could happen with Rasmus Sandin: he could get signed by the Leafs, he could sign an offer sheet, he could sit out, or the Toronto Maple Leafs could trade him.

Kyle Dubas has said before that one thing he learned from Lou Lamoriello is “if you can wait, wait.”  There’s no reason to sign Rasmus Sandin right now, since training camp is still about six weeks away.

If Sandin is signed to an offer sheet, the Toronto Maple Leafs will have seven days to decide if they want to match the offer or take compensation.  In that time, they could make a trade to accommodate a matched contract if they want to.  That is such a remote possibility, however, that it’s likely not even worth thinking about.  A second round pick for Sandin would be horrible, and there is no way the Leafs would settle for that.

While there are currently three left handed defenseman ahead of Sandin on the depth chart, we have no idea how the Leafs actually view him.  He didn’t play in the playoffs, but he was coming off of a knee injury.  At the same time, his statistics were second only to Timothy Liljegren on the team last year, and his career trajectory is going up while Muzzin, Giordano and Rielly are all in decline.

While we don’t know what will happen with Sandin, the most likely and reasonable outcome is that he starts the season with a regular role in the Leafs top-six, whether on the left or the right side.

Though it’s unlikely to factor in, Toronto Maple Leafs have until December 1st to get a deal done before Sandin would have to sit out the entire season.