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The Toronto Maple Leafs 2-1 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers on Thursday ended a string of 11 straight road games in which they earned at least a point and knocked the club out of a playoff spot at the NHL All-Star break.
Only someone with the most optimistic outlook could not have imagined that Toronto with eight rookies in the lineup and a weak defensive corps could challenge for an Eastern Conference playoff spot, but that is where the Leafs are with 35 games remaining in the regular season.
With the four-day hiatus, media observers are openly wondering whether their recent success could sway the club’s management from staying the course of the rebuild and make roster upgrades to improve the Leafs chances of making a playoff run.
On
TSN 1050’s Breakfast Club Friday,, the Athletic’s James Mirtle pointed out that the window for Toronto to win with their young players on entry-level deals is small and that the Leafs best chance may be in the next two-to-three years before Auston Matthews, William Nylander and Mitch Marner start making big money.
Stanley Cup winners since the 2005 lockout in Anaheim(with Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry), Chicago (Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane) and Los Angeles (Tyler Toffoli and Tanner Pearson) all had key contributors who were all on entry-level deals.
One of the more important tasks for GM Lou Lamoriello will be to keep the club’s salary structure in line.
The expiring contracts of Brooks Laich, Stephane Robidas, Milan Michalek, Colin Greening, Roman Polak and Matt Hunwick will open up over $17 Million in cap space, but some of that will be taken up by re-signing RFA forwards Connor Brown, Zach Hyman and defenseman Nikita Zaitsev, as well space taken up by bonuses reached by Matthews, Marner and Nylander.
Lamoriello was able to get Nazem Kadri signed to a six-year extension at a cost-effective $4.5 Million AAV and locked up defenseman Morgan Rielly for six years at $5 Million per season, which compared to other top pairing defenseman last summer was quite reasonable.
The Leafs will need to get Brown, Hyman and Zaitsev to take similar reasonable contract extensions for them to maintain their flexibility to add the missing pieces needed to contend in the next few years, while also moving out veterans like James van Riemsdyk and Tyler Bozak while they have value and before they leave via unrestricted free agency in the summer of 2018.
Toronto will always leave the door open to make a trade that will make them better, but Lamoriello and Team President Brendan Shanahan have reiterated that any deal will need to have positive long-term implications. That likely means they will not make a big move before March 1 and mortgage future assets to do so.
If Mike Babcock’s club stays in the playoff race, they will likely stand pat and not move van Riemsdyk (who Sportsnet’s Doug Maclean says is off the market), but if they stumble in the second half, you could see the JVR talk pick up once again and rentals Polak and Hunwick moved out.
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TSN’s Darren Dreger reported on Thursday that Leafs 2016 second rounder Carl Grundstrom could be headed to North America sooner than expected.
The 19-year-old winger has 12 goals in 31 games with Frolunda in the Swedish Hockey League and impressed at the 2017 World Junior with seven points in seven games playing on Sweden’s top line with first rounders Joel Eriksson-Ek and Alex Nylander.
Dreger says that preliminary contract talks between Toronto and Grundstrom are underway to bring the feisty winger to play in the AHL or NHL next season, but that it is possible that he would choose to stay in the SHL another year and come to North America in 2018.
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