Playoff Villain Turned Down Toronto Maple Leafs in Free Agency

Though the Toronto Maple Leafs may have been deeply perturbed by his post season antics, it turns out that they had interest in the services of one of the Florida Panthers  goons.

There was an opportunity for the Toronto Maple Leafs to steal Radko Gudas away from Florida. Now, that time has passed. However, it turns out that the Leafs did make an attempt to bring the defenseman to Toronto. We’ve learned from on a recent interview Gudas gave iSport in the Czech Republic that he turned down the Buds.

In that interview, Gudas explained that he decided to leave the Panthers after their offer to extend him came with an underwhelming dollar figure. Instead, he chose to move on and join a new club where he could earn more money that will benefit him and his family.

At age 33, Gudas found the deal that suited him, playing for the Anaheim Ducks. According to Cap Friendly, he signed a three year deal worth $12M, giving him a $4M AAV.

Gudas says that the Edmonton Oilers, Calgary Flames, and the Toronto Maple Leafs all offered him contracts, but “Anaheim came out as the best option.” If this is true, the three Canadian teams dodged a bullet. The Ducks overpaid the hard hitting talent. A team like the Leafs who are up against the salary cap would suffer if they had picked up Gudas with the same term and value as the Ducks.

Playoff Villain Turned Down Toronto Maple Leafs in Free Agency

While Gudas rejecting the idea of playing in Canada may make headlines in the country, the timing is a little suspect.

Gudas signed his contract on July 1. A deal of that size takes time to work out the details. This happened on the same day that the Duck’s general manager, Pat Verbeek, also negotiated a bigger deal than the one with Gudas, where he signed forward Alex Killorn a four year, $25M deal.

On July 1, Verbeek also signed Trevor Carrick to a much less significant deal. Carrick inked a one-year, two-way contract worth $775,000.

Gudas suggests that he was tendered offers by multiple teams. Chances are that if this is true, the deals were nowhere near as valuable as what he received from Anaheim. If it were, negotiations would likely have taken more time before Gudas ultimately signed his contract.

Based on the timing, the Toronto Maple Leafs may have inquired about Gudas and could have made him an offer closer to what the Panthers had given him. The narrative created by Gudas of him turning down the Canadian teams makes him look like he was in-demand. Without all the details, we don’t know whether the contract offers were actually low-ball deals paying the blue liner even less than what he earned last season ($2.5M AAV).

Time will tell whether the Gudas deal was a good one for Anaheim though it’s hard to see the contract looking good three years from now.