The Maple Leafs extended two of their most important assets on Wednesday, in an obvious effort to tie up loose ends. Restricted free agents Nazem Kadri and Morgan Rielly both came to terms on long-term extensions with the club that drafted them.
Maple Leafs Tie Loose Ends With Rielly, Kadri Extensions
The Rielly deal is clearly cause for celebration if you’re a Leaf fan. Rielly will earn $5 million per season, commencing at the start of next season, for the following six years . There are no clauses listed, as per Generalfanager.com. This signing is fantastic value going forward, for a player unanimously considered to be a cornerstone of the rebuild.
There’s a legitimate argument to be made that, aside from Filip Forsberg, and maybe Alex Galchenyuk, Rielly would be found at the at the top of the heap in a do-over of the 2012 draft. Then-GM Brian Burke boasted that the Leafs had him as the top talent in the draft, and if he was wrong, he does’t appear to be far off.
The deal is a nice trade-off for both sides, as Rielly will be just 28 when his contract expires and still in his prime years as an NHL defender. His next contract should be a monster, in the range of 7.5-8 million, should he deliver on what is expected of him over the next six seasons. No doubt Leafs GM Lou Lamoriello pushed for longer term, but that most likely would have tied up more cap space than he was prepared to assign to any one player at this stage, and as the Leafs’ next wave of potential top-six talent emerges – some of whom will likely become core players – they’ll need that space to lock up those other assets.
Kadri earned high praise this past season for his attention to detail, his compete level, tenacity, and overall evolution as a pro. The only area he fell short was in point production. To say he underwhelmed as an offense-oriented top-line centre would be accurate. Often, players in a contract year will go all-out to pad their personal stats in order to prove their value to their respective clubs.
Kadri went the other route, and it was arguably to his credit, actually. Instead of focusing on personal point production, the former seventh-overall pick went to work on becoming a better teammate and overall contributor to the Maple Leafs franchise. He showcased his willingness to come all the way back and work to regain the puck, his penchant for drawing penalties (a stat he led the league in), as well as his emerging face-off and playmaking skills, which make any line he centres a tough one to contain.
Where Kadri most needs to improve is his ability to finish. While he has the stickhandling tools to work himself into better scoring areas, he often elects to shoot from the top of the dot and into the goalies’ body armour. According to coach Mike Babcock, Kadri, among others, needs a real “NHL summer” in terms of training, in order to build up his wrist and forearm strength and refine that shot a little more. If he can get a little more “zip” into his release, adding an extra 5-8 goals to his annual totals shouldn’t be a problem. Aside from the shot, he could also stand to take it to the net a little more often, and with a little more determination. If he’s willing to pay the price, he’ll reap the reward and may prove to have more in common with top-line centres around the league than he currently demonstrates.
The deal he signed is the right one for both the club and player. While he may have wanted a bigger annual raise than the $400,000 increase he settled for, he likely ended up with more term and job security than anticipated. His new annual rate of $4.5 million for six seasons works out to $27 million total. Throw in a no-trade clause, and Kadri leaves the table a rich man with the kind of term and security that mitigates what is arguably an underwhelming pay raise.
A word about the no-trade clause: the Leafs have twelve months to evaluate before that clause kicks in, affording them the opportunity to deal the player without any consideration given to a restrictive list of potential trade partners should his services become redundant. In short, if they acquire a more suitable top line centre, and they don’t see a fit for Kadri in the top-six group going forward, they won’t find it particularly difficult to trade his rights.
It was prudent of Lamoriello to get out in front of this situation before the balance of power shifted to favour the player. If the Leafs are able to draft franchise centre-in-waiting Auston Matthews, it is a certainty that he would ultimately usurp Kadri in the depth charts, and that could cause the player’s stock to plummet, if unsigned. Conversely, if the Leafs don’t draft or sign a bona fide 1C option during the off-season, Kadri’s camp would arguably have had considerable negotiating leverage much the same way pending unrestricted free agent Mikhail Grabovski once did when the Leafs’ centre depth was seen wanting. The result? an obvious overpayment by Burke to keep the player on the books, as well as a costly eventual buyout.
The optics here suggest that Kadri is a placeholder in the one-hole, with a contract that is easily absorbed by any suitor in need of an effective and affordable 2C going forward. That is certainly not to suggest that he is trade-bait. He could drop into the 2-hole in Toronto if required, however, that begs the question: where does William Nylander fit? It is conceivable Nylander plays on the wing for a year, but he is being groomed as a centreman, and that is the organization’s greatest need. How it all shakes out will ultimately be decided by the most appropriate means possible: the on-ice performance of the players themselves.
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