Many teams are struggling to keep the puck out of their net, none and I mean none of them have reached out to Enstrom. If they had, he would have been in the league again this year.
- TheUltimateJet
To be fair to Enstrom here ( and Rexy) there are some misnomers here that do need to be put in context. Firstly, while he wasn't effective at all in the playoffs, you may not remember but he was not actually on the ice at all for any Vegas goals in the game before he was designated to the press box. Maurice had reduced his time down to about 11 minutes or so from usual 14 minutes a night. He was battling some injuries and I imagine loaded up on painkillers before the games. Hence 11 minutes only. The discussion in Game 5 would have been, Toby , "we need a defenseman that's healthy that can play at least 15 minutes". Toby would have said, "I've done everything for this team from waiving my NTC to playing injured and deserve better". Stakes are high and Maurice needs to do what he thinks is best and sits him.
Most NHL teams worried about durability. Also, Toby might have been top 6 th percentile in shot suppression but the rest of his numbers and overall team impact numbers were 30th percentile. He needed at least a two-year deal to consider moving the family and my sources said that most he was offered were well less than $2MM on a one year deal by two teams. Rest passed...too risky. Toby could have played a third pairing role for a team in need like Montreal but he was right to take his new wife and rejoin his family in Sweden and call it a day. He can buy a nice mansion with a Swedish sauna in the back and go to town on producing a few children.
Modo is a poor shade of its former self when it used to be an elite team and producing guys like Forsberg. These days its been a weak team in a Swedish B-league. It's more a job to keep him busy than anything else and on a larger ice surface where he can be more protected. Stats in that league are not at all comparable to anything in Junior A or Major Junior in North America.
In the end many of us on this board predicted this fate in late- January to early February of last year. Rexy said he was 100% certain that Enstrom would be re-signed for at least 2 yrs. The crowd was correct. End of Story.