It's no secret that the Toronto Maple Leafs are going to be looking to change a whole lot of their roster this offseason. New general manager John Chayka has a sizeable task ahead of him to quickly turn this team from winning the Draft Lottery to battling for a playoff spot.
This turnaround will involve making some key decisions on pending unrestricted free agents. Does Chayka try to keep them around, or does he let them walk to maybe find a better (and possibly cheaper) replacement?
Well it certainly seems like the Leafs could be moving on from two pending free agents.
According to The Fourth Period's David Pagnotta, the Leafs are not going to be re-signing forward Calle Jarnkrok and that they are in the very early stages of trying to bring back defenseman Troy Stecher, but is the real possibility that he walks too.
"Pending unrestricted free agent forward Calle Jarnkrok is not expected back. The Leafs have had preliminary talks with pending UFA defenceman Troy Stetcher, but there are no guarantees he’s brought back, either," Pagnotta writes.
Jarnkrok not being re-signed is an obvious choice. The 34-year-old forward has seen his production degrade over the four years of him being in Toronto -- to the point that he scored six goals and eight points in 56 games last season. His recovery from a devestating injury that kept him out for most of the 2024-25 season was great, but he is just not good enough to even keep around right now.
Even if he were to agree to a league-minimum deal, we saw late last season that several AHL players could reasonably replace him in the bottom six. Someone like Jacob Quillan probably provides similar on-ice impact (or more) and he can be a more long-term piece with him being over a decade younger.
But, could they really regret letting Troy Stecher walk?
Leafs could regret not re-signing Troy Stecher
While last year was still an overall disaster that led the Leafs to winning the Draft Lottery, there were a few bright spots and one of them was Troy Stecher.
As soon as he was claimed off of waivers and joined the blue line, he just fit in perfectly. He was easily the best defenseman in Toronto at times and was eventually elevated to a more important role on the blue line, too.
Stecher finished the season with three goals and 14 points in the 58 games he played for the Leafs, all while averaging 19:46 time-on-ice. But he was clearly someone who had more impact at actually driving play. His Corsi For percentage relative to his teammates was a plus-2.4 percent, which is obviously a positive.
And he clearly loved playing in Toronto and should come back as a depth defender, at the very least. We hope that this team isn't depending too much on Stecher to play in the top four -- because Chayka should make some key additions to the blue line this summer -- but as a solid, bottom-pairing defenseman that might get scratched a couple times a season, you can do a lot worse.
You might as well bring guys back who want to play here, and they could really regret letting someone that is mobile and enjoys playing hockey in Toronto, just walk to go sign somewhere else.
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