The Toronto Maple Leafs Paid Another Replacement Player Above the League Minimum

The Toronto Maple Leafs have re-signed Connor Dewar to a one-year contract extension just above the league minimum.

It's not a bad deal for the Toronto Maple Leafs because at least they avoided overpaying him significantly, or giving him any no-trade protection, which they tend to do at a comically high rate.

The good news here is that Dewar is 24 and has a bit of upside.....if you squint.

The even better news is that he makes $1.18 and a team can bury as much as $1.15 in the minors, so if Dewar can't play, he can just be demoted without any real penalty. (puckpedia.com).

The problem, if there is one, is just one of principle: why pay more than the league minimum for players who are interchangeable with players you can get cheaper? Why continue to block your young players with veterans who have less upside?

The Leafs might not want to keep going with kyle Dubas and Brendan Shanahan's Studs and Duds approach to team-building around the NHL's salary cap, but as long as they continue to pay the Studs every time they overpay a Dud it hurts the team.

For the 192nd time: Pick a Lane.

The Toronto Maple Leafs Paid Another Replacement Player Above the League Minimum

The Leafs traded for Dewar last year at the deadline. Treliving entered the playoffs with Ilya Samsonov in net, despite waiving him in January, and he (Treliving) did absolutely nothing at the trade deadline to help the team, who lost by a single goal in OT of game 7.

Dewar was not a significant addition. Re-signing him serves almost no purpose.

He played 17 games with the Leafs where puck-possession was not a strength, but where his line peppered enough shots on net to have an expected goals rating of 51%, despite losing their minutes by one goal.

Considering his most common Leafs linemate was the worst player in the NHL, Ryan Reaves, and that together they played well enough to win their minutes, I think Dewar is a helpful player who can help give the Leafs a decent fourth line. (stats naturalstattrick.com).

However, is is worth noting that that is a very small sample of 17 games playing ten minutes or less per night. In Minnesota where he had a much much higher amount of minutes, he lost them, significantly.

During his last two seasons with the Wild, Dewar was consistently destroyed by the opposition, getting just 40% of the goals and 47% of the Expected Goals.

Why the Leafs would trade a fourth round pick for this player, and then turn around and pay him more than the league minimum is beyond me.

They need to understand that even if Connor Dewar was everything they hoped he would be, literally any rookie they plug in in his place will provide the same thing. Dewar is worth zero wins across a full season and might have negative value. At least with a 20 year old, there would be the chance he'd suddenly get better than you thought.

That doesn't generally happen with 24 year olds who have a history of losing their minutes. In conclusion, Dewar doesn't hurt the team, but is another player in a disturbing trend of the Leafs overpaying everyone for no reason.

This just shows that bad decisions compound themselves. The Leafs made an error when they gave away a 4th round pick for nothing, and then had to make another error because letting him walk after spending the pick would make them look bad.