Reporter confirms three of the teams the Leafs beat out in the Tyler Bertuzzi sweepstakes
When the news dropped on Sunday that the Leafs had signed Tyler Bertuzzi to a 1-year deal worth $5.5M, you could feel the electricity and excitement in Leafs Nation. After all, Bertuzzi is not only good offensively, but he's also the straw that stirs the drink. He can mix it up and create some energy for his team in more ways than one.
Heading into day 2 of free agency, the Leafs had been one of the quieter teams, only managing to sign a 4th liner in Ryan Reaves, a purely offensive defenseman in John Klingberg and a handful of AHL contributors. Adding Bertuzzi and then Max Domi re-energized the fanbase and gave people something to look forward to this fall after another disappointing early playoff exit.
As cool as it was to have signed Bertuzzi, as reporter Andy Strickland mentioned on Sunday, there were a number of competitive bidders for his services. Three of those bidders were the Florida Panthers, Nashville Predators and Carolina Hurricanes. As you well know, the Preds outbid the Leafs on both Ryan O'Reilly and Luke Schenn and the Hurricanes swooped in and nabbed ex-Leaf Michael Bunting, so the Leafs using flexing their financial muscle and offering Bertuzzi almost his entire contract up front as a signing bonus was really the coin that tipped the scale in their favour.
The Panthers were already a strong, nasty team, so with the Leafs swooping in and landing Bertuzzi right out from under their noses is some retribution, in a way. The two Atlantic Division teams bid on the same player, but instead of going to a Stanley Cup Finalist in Florida, Bertuzzi chose Toronto, which has Leafs Nation feeling pretty good right about now.
In a market that is so starved for cap space right now, it was nice to see Treliving acknowledge that the need for a player like Bertuzzi outweighed the money it took to acquire him. The bonus in all of this is that the Leafs showed at least two other teams who were looking to add an impact player that they'd have to up the ante if they wanted to compete and, in turn, chased off Florida, Carolina and Nashville, who will now have to look elsewhere if they want to add an impact player.
You absolutely love to see Treliving not back down and get the better of one Atlantic Division rival, another Eastern Conference rival and one Western Conference bidder who had just overpaid two ex-Leafs to lure them out of Toronto. Way to stick it to them, Brad!
