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The price of blueline poker just went up

July 21, 2018, 12:58 PM ET [339 Comments]
Mike Augello
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The Toronto Maple Leafs will have to pay a hefty price to improve their blueline, either in salary on a new deal for pending free agent Jake Gardiner or in a deal for another blueliner, and that reality is becoming more apparent as some of this summer’s restricted free agents get signed to new deals.

On Saturday, the Minnesota Wild and defenseman Mathew Dumba reached agreement on a five-year, $30 Million contract extension. Dumba, 23, scored 50 points (14 goals, 36 assists) for the first time last season and will likely take on a bigger role with the Wild while veteran Ryan Suter recovers from offseason ankle surgery.

As I wrote earlier this week, a long-term deal for Dumba might eventually make blueliner Jared Spurgeon available on the trade market to alleviate the Wild’s cap crunch, but that may not happen until the season starts and Suter returns. What has to be a concern for the Leafs is the price that the 23-year-old was signed for and what that could mean between now and next July if they have designs on getting Gardiner re-signed.

Gardiner will be 29 next July and after scoring 43 and 52 points the last two seasons, if he puts up another 50+ point campaign, the best case scenario would be a deal similar to Kevin Shattenkirk’s with the New York Rangers last summer.

Shattenkirk was 28 when he signed a four-year contract with an AAV of $6.65 Million, which was considered a good deal because it was widely known that the New Rochelle, NY native wanted to play close to home.

Even if Gardiner wants to stay with the Leafs (the club he has played 489 NHL games with) and is willing to take a hometown discount, the cost will likely be higher than Shattenkirk and the only tactic that GM Kyle Dubas could use to make the cap hit more cost-effective is stretching out the term of the deal to seven or eight years and front loading the first half of the deal to make it more tradeable when Gardiner is in his 30’s.

A salary over $6 Million is something that Toronto will not be able to afford with the new deals of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander and the current deal of John Tavares on the books in 2019, but a repeat of what happened with James van Riemsdyk and Tyler Bozak last season (keeping them through the season and letting them walk as free agents) is something that the Leafs cannot do with Gardiner, since the value for defensemen (even rentals) are much higher than forwards.

The Leafs also do not have the luxury of a deep pool of options in the organization to replace Gardiner as they do with van Riemsdyk and Bozak.

The situation with Trouba in Winnipeg appears to be following a similar pattern. The 24-year-old and the Jets had their arbitration hearing on Friday and a decision is expected to come down this weekend.

The end result could be a one-year deal in the $5.5 to $6 Million range, which brings Trouba one year closer to unrestricted free agency and makes a trade in the near future more likely, but based on the cap mess that Jets GM Kevin Chevelayoff has to deal with over the next two summers, it will be a necessity for Winnipeg to get young NHL players (especially on D) on their entry level deals in exchange.

In a Leafs-Jets scenario, that would mean a deal involving an inexpensive young forward (Andreas Johnsson, Kasperi Kapanen or Carl Grundstrom), a young blueliner (Travis Dermott or 2017 first rounder Timothy Liljegren) and perhaps another prospect or first round pick to give Winnipeg what they need.

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