Toronto Maple Leafs Made a Risky Call With Ilya Samsonov

Ilya Samsonov just landed at a near perfect price for the Toronto Maple Leafs, albeit with very little reason for either party to feel good.

Coming in at $3.55 million for the next year, Ilya Samsonov offers a potential bargain deal for the Toronto Maple Leafs, if he stays fit and can meet the expectations he set last season.

However, the fact it took an arbitration hearing to get to that number and the fact that the Leafs essentially low-balled him could leave a bitter taste in the mouth at the end of that one-year term.

Likewise, the Leafs run the risk that they no longer can afford him should he exceed the level of performance he offered up last year.

Toronto Maple Leafs Had to Bet On Samsonov

All told, given the injury woes of Matt Murray, returning to the incumbent was about the only option the Toronto Maple Leafs had.

They did it in a rather risky manner as arbitration hearings always leave potential for upset and bad tastes in people’s mouths. To land completely in the middle of the two sides’ valuation though might have eased any tension.

Right now, Samsonov’s agent is espousing all the right messages, stating that his client isn’t too upset and that there’s no bad blood though beneath the surface, you must wonder if this is just PR talk.

All of the eggs are now firmly in the Samsonov basket; he is the number one on this team with Joseph Woll his likely backup.

A combination of Samsonov and Woll doesn’t necessarily scream Stanley Cup favourites, but we mustn’t forget that the Vegas Golden Knights just got it done with Adin Hill.

The bigger challenge here is that the Toronto Maple Leafs must solve their salary cap challenges, though the $3.55 million deal certainly gives a tiny bit more breathing room than Samsonov’s valuation of $4.9 million.

It does still mean that the team is running over the salary cap by $12.3 million (per CapFriendly) at this point in time, though maybe the arbitration hearing was all for show and it was simply a team ploy to get a second buyout window should nobody be willing to take Matt Murray off their hands.

Let’s hope that the one-year commitment is enough to show Ilya Samsonov that he is valued by the organisation and with the potential that he’s buoyed by the salary cap increase next year, perhaps he finds yet another level.

That is the ideal result for the Leafs, lest they want to spend the next year trying to scrape around the bottom of the barrel for semi-decent goaltending (because that’s never happened before).

Allowing his contract to go to arbitration was a risky play, but hopefully in time it proves to have been the right one.