The Toronto Maple Leafs finally made some news yesterday.
Unfortunately, the Toronto Maple Leafs didn’t make a trade or sign their last remaining RFA – rather, the news was that “negotiations are going nowhere” with Rasmus Sandin.
And since this is a slow-news part of the NHL schedule, that turned out to be a bigger deal that it should have been.
It should not have been a big deal at all.
Toronto Maple Leafs and Rasmus Sandin
Here are 4 things we know for sure:
- Rasmus Sandin is not going to sign here right now because the Leafs don’t have anywhere for him to play. The second he has a clear path to ice time, he will sign a cheap one-year contract for the same amount as Liljegren. (It would be smart to try to go longer term, but IDK why Sandin would do so).
- The Leafs currently have Morgan Rielly, Mark Giordano and Jake Muzzin. Sheldon Keefe will not sit one of those guys in order to play Sandin, even though Sandin might be the best of the bunch right now, and if he isn’t, he surely will be within a year.
- The Leafs are not going to lose a player of Sandin’s potential after spending so much time and effort developing him.
- The best iteration of the Leafs current roster includes Sandin in a top-four role.
While I suppose a trade is possible, it would be quite shocking. The Leafs have a clear way out of this situation and that is getting Jake Muzzin to waive his no-trade clause and be traded.
Once Muzzin is traded the Leafs can sign Sandin and their roster is ready for the season.
It’s pretty much a no-brainer here on what the correct move is.
The only other option I can see is trying to trade for an elite-right handed defenseman.
Brodie-Liljegren-Holl is going to be among the best right sides in the NHL next year, so the Leafs would need to make a pretty big upgrade in order to improve on this, and that would require moving all three of Sandin, Kerfoot and Holl to make the salary work.
I’m not sure if a marginal upgrade to the right side before the season starts is worth the team’s entire combo of cap flexibility and assets. Much better to make a move like that near the trade deadline. (info capfriendly).
Which just makes trading Sandin that much of a bad idea – the Leafs do not have one single spot on their roster to address, other than maybe their goalies, but they aren’t changing tactics on that now.
Sure, they could trade for a top line left winger but a) how much better than Kerfoot would that player actually be, and b) they need to keep that spot as a winnable option for the likes of Robertson, Steeves, Knies, Hirvonen etc.
The answer to what the Leafs should do with Sandin is an Occam’s Razor situation: the simplest situation is the best, and in that case that means getting rid of Jake Muzzin, which essentially solves every problem the Leafs have.