The Toronto Maple Leafs had a day that oscillated wildly between terrible and great when free-agency opened yesterday.
The Toronto Maple Leafs kicked things off in perfect Dave Nonis fashion, signing washed up nearly 40 year-old Ryan Reaves, an enforcer (!) in a league that doesn’t use them any more, to a way-too-expensive, way-too-long cap hit.
This is an objectively bad move, that when coupled with the David Kampf contract and the fact that Sam Lafferty is still here means the Leafs will be hard-pressed to correct their inability to score outside of their superstar players.
However, it wasn’t all bad news for the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday.
Toronto Maple Leafs Get a Few Favours
Ryan O’Reilly did the Leafs a massive favor by absconding to Nashville for four years. That contract is so brutal some might even call it an Elvis Costello rip-off.
The Detroit Red Wings signed Justin Holl for reasons only they know. I sure don’t know what they were thinking, but after rumours surfaced that the Leafs wanted to bring him back I was ecstatic at the news.
Edmonton gave Connor Brown a deal with a $4 million dollar cap-hit. Ken Holland remains the worst GM in the world, but Barrie Trotz is apparently intent on taking his title away from him.
Not only did Trotz bring O’Reilly to Nashville, he also signed Luke Schenn for three years and a crazy-town cap-hit.
While Kampf and Reeves were bad moves that wasted cap-space, the fact is they are minor moves compared to what others did Saturday.
Many NHL teams made their cap situations much worse and when your opponents get worse, you get better. Therefore, in some ways it was a good day for the Leafs.
Whether it was a very good day or not depends on what happened after I finished writing this article (which you can read about in one hour or less).
Did the Leafs trade for Erik Karlsson? They did not. They did, however, add defenseman John Klingberg, a player similar to Tyson Barrie – i.e. a right-handed puck mover who isn’t very good defensively.
The Leafsd did not land Matt Duchene, Patrick Kane or Vladdy Tarasenko at a massive discount, but two of those three guys remain on the board.
Near the end of the day, the Leafs also lost Kerfoot and Bunting. Two players who likely aren’t going to be worth their new contracts.
It seemed like Shanny and Treliving wanted to bring back the entire gang, and I must say I am happy that they couldn’t pull it off. Schenn, O’Reilly and Holl all make their new teams worse by virtue of wasted cap space, while the Leafs down now down five or so regulars are going to be forced to dress a much different team than it seemed like they wanted to.
Overall, not a great day, but certainly not a bad one for the Toronto Maple Leafs.