The Toronto Maple Leafs have signed defenseman Rasmus Sandin to a two-year contract extension.
The deal is identical to the two-year $1.4 million dollar extension Timothy Liljegren signed earlier in the summer with the Toronto Maple Leafs. (capfriendly.com).
A persistent rumour all summer was that the Leafs offered them both the same deal on the same day at the same time, Liljegren took it and Sandin didn’t.
Despite an avalanche of idiotic takes, there was no reason for Sandin to sign a contract with a team that couldn’t guarantee him a position.
And don’t make the mistake of saying “oh what’s he done to warrant making such a demand” because what he did was make himself into a top-four NHL defenseman who puts up excellent numbers (not point totals, this isn’t 1995). Only in the NHL does a player have a no-doubt breakout year and people try to make excuses for it.
Sandin is better than Jake Muzzin today, and therefore was never going to sign when there wasn’t anywhere to play.
Toronto Maple Leafs: Injuries Cleared the Log Jam
The Leafs began training camp with 10 NHL Quality Defensemen, but Sandin was sitting out, bringing them down to nine.
Muzzin is hurt, and so is Liljegren. That makes seven.
Then last night Carl Dahlstrom and Jordie Benn both suffered long-term injuries.
That left the Leafs with five defensemen.
And suddenly, within hours of there being a job opening for him, Sandin signs. For exactly the contract he was offered months ago.
Weird that he wasn’t holding out for big money or that another team didn’t send him an offer sheet. I only said that offer sheets don’t happen about 2500 times!
Personally, I think the Toronto Maple Leafs missed out on on some bonus years by not overpaying Rasmus and TL slightly right now in exchange for long term deals that are friendly to the team.
Even Mitch Marner’s deal (mocked at the time) has become so ridiculously team-friendly, that it more or less proves that almost any long-term deal is favorable to the team.
Rasmus Sandin, signed 2x$1.4M by TOR, is a young puck-moving defenceman who did about as well in a sheltered role last season as you could possibly ask for. His raw on-ice numbers were near the top of the league; adjusted for deployment, still pretty damn good. #LeafsForever pic.twitter.com/EfeOor5Q0g
— JFresh (@JFreshHockey) September 29, 2022
That is, unless you’re the Buffalo Sabres, and regularly give them out to mid-range players.
Signing Sandin and Liljegren to long-term deals that paid four or even five million would eventually have been bargains, but arguably, the Leafs need more short-term savings at the moment, and those types of deals wouldn’t work right now.
What we know for sure is that the Leafs have 2 x top-four potential superstar defenseman signed for the next two seasons for under $2 million dollars per. That is incredible value right there.
It would have been nice to lock up at least one of them, but their current deals are so cheap that it is yet another two feathers in the cap of the NHL’s best GM.
It continues to be hilarious that people think he is a bad manager just because the team a) lost to Columbus while facing the NHL record for save percentage in a series b) lost to Montreal after achieving 98% win probability, and with injuries completely decimating the team c) lost to Referees whose botched game six forced the Leafs to have to beat Tampa five times to advance.
Ignore the anomalies, and check out the 2400th straight good move by the young GM. I’m not saying Kyle Dubas is infallible, but I am starting to wonder. Having both Liljegren and Sandin signed for the cost of 80% of one Jake Muzzin is one of the most impressive things an NHL GM has done lately.