{"id":112128,"date":"2021-06-16T15:37:08","date_gmt":"2021-06-16T19:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=112128"},"modified":"2021-06-16T15:37:08","modified_gmt":"2021-06-16T19:37:08","slug":"maple-leafs-jason-spezza-extension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2021\/06\/16\/maple-leafs-jason-spezza-extension\/","title":{"rendered":"Toronto Maple Leafs Sign Jason Spezza To One-Year Extension"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On Wednesday, the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2021\/06\/16\/nhl-rumours-leafs-oilers-sabres\/\" target=\"_self\">Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a>\u00a0announced that veteran forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/s\/spezzja01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jason Spezza<\/a> agreed on a one-year, $750,000 contract extension.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Spezza\u2019s staying home!\u00a0<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>Jason Spezza has signed a one-year contract extension.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/LeafsForever?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#LeafsForever<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Toronto Maple Leafs (@MapleLeafs) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MapleLeafs\/status\/1405236256980836359?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">June 16, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Jason Spezza Signs Contract Extension<\/h2>\n<p>Spezza has spent the past two seasons with the Maple Leafs and had already expressed his wishes to return for another one. The 38-year-old played in 54 regular-season games with the Leafs in the 2020-21 campaign and recorded 10 goals and 30 points. During this year&#8217;s Round 1 of the playoffs, he had three goals and five points in seven games. The new contract will lead Spezza to his 19th NHL season.<\/p>\n<p>He has appeared in 1,177 games with the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/senators\/\" target=\"_self\">Ottawa Senators<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/stars\/\" target=\"_self\">Dallas Stars<\/a>, and the Maple Leafs throughout his career. He has a career record of 351 goals and 970 points in the regular season. In the playoffs, he has 28 goals and 75 points in 92 games. Spezza was drafted second overall by the Senators in the 2001 NHL Draft.<\/p>\n<h3>What This Means for the Future<\/h3>\n<p>Spezza has been a good veteran addition to the Maple Leafs, especially during the 2020-21 season. He was placed in the bottom six for Toronto and has been nothing but successful on the offensive side. According to <a href=\"https:\/\/evolving-hockey.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Evolving Hockey<\/a>, Spezza had the highest points\/60 production at even strength of any bottom-six player this regular season. He stands 10th on the list and that is a plus considering he&#8217;s above players like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/m\/mackina01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nathan MacKinnon<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/d\/draisle01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Leon Draisaitl<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This is also the third straight one-year, league-minimum contract the 38-year-old player has signed with Toronto. Spezza is from Toronto and those three contracts show that he&#8217;s comfortable and wants to stay. On a team like the Maple Leafs, a veteran player who wants to be there and will take smaller contracts is paradise. Considering his production and how good he was for them during the first round of the playoffs, this extension is a win-win.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<br \/>\n<a id=\"r-bi_1LnT5lluoZzZJyZDg\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1233199746\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'r-bi_1LnT5lluoZzZJyZDg',sig:'UtEaekcIZXR3nioAfWFhydlaVgYWn7ccjabgjbdHxsg=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1233199746',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Wednesday, the Toronto Maple Leafs\u00a0announced that veteran forward Jason Spezza agreed on a one-year, $750,000 contract extension. Spezza\u2019s staying home!\u00a0\u00a0Jason Spezza has signed a one-year contract extension.\u00a0#LeafsForever &mdash; Toronto Maple Leafs (@MapleLeafs) June 16, 2021 Jason Spezza Signs Contract Extension Spezza has spent the past two seasons with the Maple Leafs and had already [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3683,"featured_media":112135,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4547,34,4548,18],"tags":[1224],"class_list":["post-112128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hockey","category-news","category-nhl","category-leafs","tag-jason-spezza"],"modified_by":"Josh Erickson","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3683"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}