Defenseman Ron Hainsey has signed with the Toronto Maple Leafs on a two-year contract. The deal will earn him $6 million over the next two years.
Ron Hainsey's 2-yr deal with the Leafs is worth around $3 M per year
— Pierre LeBrun (@PierreVLeBrun) July 1, 2017
Ron Hainsey Signs with the Toronto Maple Leafs
Hainsey is 36 years old, a veteran signing for the Maple Leafs. The trick with playing him though is that he’s best suited for a bottom pairing role. When he came to the Penguins, he was playing some bottom six minutes but then he was promoted to the top pair with Brian Dumoulin all playoffs. It ended up getting them a championship but he was still fatigued each game and was making way too many careless turnovers playing over 22 minutes a night. He won’t provide the Maple Leafs with a lot of offence as he really isn’t known to be an offensive defenseman but he’ll be good in his own end playing sheltered minutes and he also can be an effective penalty killer as well.
His possession numbers haven’t always been good as he’s floated either right below 50% or just at 50%. This season with Pittsburgh he was only 47.8% after coming over from Carolina which isn’t good at all. He had eight points in his first playoff run of his NHL career, two of them being goals. Signing Hainsey wasn’t a big move for Toronto but it’s a good depth move for them as their blueline just got deeper and they can properly use him.
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