A week into free agency, there's still a very good UFA available who could help the Leafs in the top six
A very busy first day of free agency cleared out most of the top UFA's, with the exception of Nazem Kadri and John Klingberg, who are still working in earnest to negotiate deals with interested parties. But there were a tier of players just below the top players at their position, one of which who still remains un-signed.
What's even more wild about this scenario is that he plays a position, which the Leafs are particularly weak at, and has posted very strong numbers throughout his career. I am, of course, talking about 6-time 20 goal scorer Nino Niederreiter.
Niederrieter still being available this late into free agency tells us a few things:
1 - His contract demands may have been too lofty coming out if the gate, or the combination of salary and term for a 29-year-old was off-putting to teams.
2 - He's waiting for the Kadri result to boost his value, so he can sign for top dollar with one of the teams who missed out.
3 - He has a deal on the table, pending a team trying to clear out the cap space to make it all fit.
4 - None of the teams who were his primary preferences had a spot for him.
Any number of these scenarios could be true, and perhaps multiple ring true simultaneously, but the fact remains that the main ones that make sense are scenario 2 and scenario 3.
The AAV on Niederreiter's last deal was $5.25M, and at 29, I don't think he's interested in taking a pay cut at this point in his career. This could, very realistically, be his last shot to cash in on a long-term deal. That said, with the flat cap putting so much pressure on the league's top teams, it wouldn't be shocking to see him take a bit of a haircut to secure the term he might be looking for. Something in the $5Mx7Y=$35M could make sense. He might even consider slightly less if it gives him a very good chance at a Stanley Cup.
I think he could be patiently awaiting Kadri's decision, though, because whoever spent all of their time and resources on trying to lock up Kadri is going to have a ton of money to spend and not a lot of options available on the open market. For a player who is coming into perhaps his last big deal, the strategy is a very smart one. In this scenario, we may even see a deal that's as high as $6M+ for 7 seasons on the high end.
The Leafs are a team who has me really curious. For all this talk about wanting to shore up the top six with a 2LW addition, the Leafs sure have gotten in their own way over the past couple of years. One can argue that they tried to address that need last summer with the Nick Ritchie signing, but I said it then and I'll say it now - Nick Ritchie is not a top-6 forward. We found that out the hard way. Niederreiter, however, is a top-6 forward.
It seems awfully convenient to me that Jake Muzzin is sitting right there, in a tailspin in his career, at 33 years of age, earning $5.625M for the next two seasons - which is right around the likely ask from the Niederreiter camp. I mean, it's possible that the Leafs had asked him to waive his NTC and he declined, but who knows?
If the Leafs simply decided to move Muzzin, either above board or with a bit more of a devious method, much like we saw with Tampa and Ryan McDonagh, that could free up enough space to offer Niederreiter a deal in the 5Mx5 neighborhood and then turned around and dealt Justin Holl for a pick, it would also free up enough space to ink Sandin to the deal he's pursuing (the Adam Boqvist deal, $2.6Mx3). From there, the Leafs would be just a couple of quick roster assignments away from being cap compliant and ready for the 2022-23 season.
Bunting - Matthews - Marner
Niederreiter - Tavares - Nylander
Kerfoot - Jarnkrok - Aube-Kubel
Engvall - Kampf - Gaudette
Rielly - Liljegren
Sandin - Brodie
Giordano - Benn
Mete
Murray/Samsonov
I don't know where Niederreiter is going to end up, but if he does end up in Toronto, this lineup is significantly better than last year's lineup, up to and including the goaltenders.
