No. 2: Alex Kerfoot
Everyone assumes that Kerfoot will be traded because of his contract, but that confuses me. He only makes $3.5M AAV (which is a value) and his skillset is that of a swiss army knife. In my opinion, Muzzin is the obvious choice to move, but his NTC might force the Leafs to trade the extremely useful Kerfoot.
Kerfoot is an effective penalty-killer, winger, centre and can also shift between the bottom and top-six. Although I didn’t love him on the Leafs second-line last year, he’s not the worst option in the world and could be the best one for them if a few other players don’t work out.
He’s very good for a team’s 4th best winger, but ideally you’d like to have more of a goal scorer with Tavares and Nylander.
The 28-year-old may eventually traded but in the meantime, he can play second-line left-wing minutes and it’s not going to hurt the team.
Last year, Kerfoot had 51 points, but more impressively had 47 points even-strength, while only averaging 15:13 TOI. (stats: hockeyreference.com).
He was third on the team in even-strength assists and finished sixth on the team in even-strength goals. That type of production makes him a viable candidate to be a top-six winger on the roster and fans shouldn’t be upset if he is still on this team by mid-season.