Toronto Maple Leafs Should Overpay Sandin to Save in the Future

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS - OCTOBER 27: William Nylander #88 of the Toronto Maple Leafs celebrates getting the game-winning goal in overtime against the Chicago Blackhawks with teammate Rasmus Sandin #38 at the United Center on October 27, 2021 in Chicago, Illinois. The Maple Leafs defeated the Blackhawks 3-2 in overtime. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS - OCTOBER 27: William Nylander #88 of the Toronto Maple Leafs celebrates getting the game-winning goal in overtime against the Chicago Blackhawks with teammate Rasmus Sandin #38 at the United Center on October 27, 2021 in Chicago, Illinois. The Maple Leafs defeated the Blackhawks 3-2 in overtime. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

The Toronto Maple Leafs have a history of making smart signings in the Kyle Dubas era.

Mathematically, Auston Matthews currently plays on the best contract in the NHL – no player is offering up more value for less money.  The Toronto Maple Leafs also have Mitch Marner and William Nylander on team friendly deals.

If you look at their roster, there isn’t a single player on a bad contract.

Tavares makes $11 million per year, and contrary to popular belief, he is also worth every dollar.  Even in a year when he was snakebitten, recovering from injury, and forced to play in front of atrocious goaltending, he was still a 56% , point-per-game player.

Need I even mention Mark Giordano, and how his dirt-cheap, should-get-his-agent-fired, bargain contract basically makes the average cost of every player on the roster cheaper?  Or Bunting’s?

Arguably, with Bunting, Gio, Matthews and Nylander, the Leafs have four of the best contracts in all of hockey.

But it’s Marner and Nylander who are most instructive about Rasmus Sandin.

Toronto Maple Leafs Will Sign Sandin, Despite Angst From Overwrought Media

The Leafs overpaid Marner and Nylander in the short-term in order to get team-friendly numbers down the road.

The Leafs (and Sandin for that matter) know the Cap is about to go way up.   They also know that the probabilities of Sandin being a top pairing defenseman are high, and the probability that he is a top-four defenseman almost certain, so they should just shut up and sign him.

Sandin is not currently worth more than say $2 million at a max.

And the Leafs don’t have anywhere for him to play.

But a four year deal for $16 million will solve everyone’s problems.

Sandin will take it because a) there is no guarantee the cap will go up, b) the long term security and guaranteed money before he’s technically earned it will be too good for him to pass up.  This kind of offer will likely assuage him if he has to start the season on the bench, until Muzzin inevitably gets traded or injured (though, gun-to-my-head, if I had to guess what will happen, the Leafs will wait until  training camp when Muzzin will suddenly be too injured to play, and Sandin will magically have his spot back and sign within minutes to roughly the same deal Liljegren signed).

With a longer term, more expensive contract for Sandin, the Leafs buy themselves time to figure out what to do with their roster that has too many NHL players and costs too much money, and they avoid a protected, distracting situation, and they most likely get the player in question at a massively discounted price for three of the four years.  (And the longer the better).

Sandin is probably already close to worth this much, and even if he’s not, he almost certainly will be going forward.

In my opinion, the problem with the Leafs and Sandin right now isn’t how much money he wants, but that there is no place to play.  If the Leafs overpay him, he’ll sign anyways and they’ll have time to figure out what the best move for their team is.

So in exchange for a minor risk, the Leafs could lock up Sandin for what will likely turn out to be a very cheap contract in the future, even though it means they will be perceived (at least by the silliest among us) as caving in.

Next. Of Course the Leafs Can Re-Sign Bunting, If They Want To. dark

The fact is, the best strategy for signing NHL players, and the one with the highest success rate, is to pay them for what they likely will do, and not for what they have done.  This may seem counter-intuitive, but its the only way to consistently get value in a league with a salary cap.