We are now a month into free agency and there are still a number of unsigned UFAs, most notably, Nazem Kadri. The Leafs are obviously not pursuing the idea of bringing him back, but there are still plenty of intriguing names that would fit the Leafs' budget. Those include Sonny Milano, Zack Auston-Reese, Tyler Motte, and potentially Daniel Sprong, just to name a few.
Evolving Hockey was courteous enough to provide updated projections of what their contracts could look like this far into the off-season and they are surprisingly cheap, compared to their earlier projections as you can see below:
Personally, I don't think Milano will sign for anything under $1M given his performance last season, but the Leafs should certainly inquire about Aston-Reese, Motte and perhaps Sam Gagner if they haven't already.
Now the Leafs are $1.5M over the cap and still have to sign Rasmus Sandin, so they will obviously have to make a trade or two to rid themselves of some salary, but given the interest in Alex Kerfoot, I don't see that being an issue.
As noted below, signing two of the above mentioned players for less than $2M combined and ridding themselves of Kerfoot's $3.5M is more valuable than holding onto Kerfoot. Especially since the underlying numbers have proven Kerfoot has made each of the lines he played on significantly worse last season.
Maybe the Leafs are playing the waiting game and hoping that the unsigned players they have interest in will continue to sit on the open market and jump on the opportunity of 1-year league minimum deals as training camp draws closer. The last thing any player wants is to miss training camp and come into the season already behind game pace.
