Though the Toronto Maple Leafs made very few ripples, let alone a splash, around the July 1st Free Agent Frenzy, they have since gone quietly about making small signings that could make them a playoff team in 2015. They might not be the big names, like adding David Bolland, David Clarkson and Jonathan Bernier last summer, but they’re also not big salary-cap numbers. The combined salaries this season for David Booth ($1.1M), Mike Santorelli ($1.5M), Daniel Winnick ($1.3M) and Konitola ($1.1M) come in at a total of $5 million—or a half-million less per season than the going rate for David Bolland when he left the Leafs for the Florida Panthers.
The off-season movement of free agents and trade pieces, of course, is a key part of any teams success, but it can’t be at the expense of developing talent from within—something the Leafs have been woefully inept at. Not having enough defensive talent developed has resulted in acquiring players via trade or free agency. The likes Jeff Finger, Mike Komisarek and Jean-Michael Liles, each getting a long term contract, each turning out as a flop.
The last players truly drafted and developed players by the Maple Leafs who have had a “decent” run in Toronto were forward Nik Antropov (8.5 season), defenceman Tomas Kaberle (11.5 seasons) and goaltender Felix Potvin (6.5 seasons).
The big singing of the summer is Jake Gardiner inking a five-year, $20.25 million dollar deal. Though technically Gardiner wasn’t originally drafted by the Leafs (he came as a prospect via trade with the Anaheim Ducks), this is a signature move as he’s expected to complement or ultimately supplant Dion Phaneuf as the leader of the Leafs blue line. Hopefully Morgan Reilly is in a similar situation in two years when he looks to sign his next NHL contract.
For this reason, I also like the signing of goaltender James Reimer to the two-year, $4.4 million dollar deal. Reimer actually stands as the best goaltender developed within the Leaf organization in two decades, a fourth-round pick in 2006 who toiled in anonymity his first few years behind Justin Pogge. In years past, the Leafs use higher picks than Reimers to grab goaltenders who ultimately failed to develop to any significant degree with the blue and white. That list includes Eric Fichaud (1st round pick, 16th overall in 1994), Francis Larivee (2nd round pick, 50th overall in 1996) and Jamie Hodson (3rd round pick, 69th overall in 1998)—and I am not even going to bring up Tuuka Rask for the umpteenth time.
But the focus has not been as much on developing goaltenders from within since Felix Potvin left the Leafs. Instead they’ve been more concerned with acquiring established netminders, having huge successes in Curtis Joseph and Ed Belfour, but then two busts in Vesa Toskala and Andrew Raycroft.
Last summer, Leafs fans felt that what happened in Game Seven in Boston, would never have happened with the likes of Bolland, Clarkson and Bernier on the ice. Instead they never even saw a Game One of the playoffs. Maybe with this off-season will prove that less really is more.