The Leafs are using an interesting strategy to try to find impact players in free agency this summer
For the Toronto Maple Leafs, Wednesday's free agent frenzy has gotten off to a pretty decent start, particularly in net, having signed 25-year-old Ilya Samsonov to complete their tandem for the upcoming season. Of course, Matt Murray is the other partner in that tandem.
Beyond the Samsonov signing, the Leafs have also announced several depth signings to potentially create some competition for bottom six spots, most notably former Avs winger and Stanley Cup Champion, Nicolas Aube-Kubel, who came in on a 1-year deal at $1M. Leafs GM Kyle Dubas spoke with the media briefly on Wednesday afternoon, mentioning that the organization views Aube-Kubel as a potential candidate to pick up where Ilya Mikheyev left off, fitting in on the Leafs' 3rd line and using his speed and relentless forechecking to try to create some opportunities for his line.
Dubas also took swings on 25-year-old Adam Gaudette and a familiar face in former Leaf Denis Malgin, both of whom can play center or wing. Both are very low-risk moves that may or may not lead to any contributions at the NHL levels, depending on how the competitions for those 4th line spots go. There's a very good chance that both players start in the AHL with the Marlies, but there is certainly room for both players to have an impact at the NHL level as well. Malgin has 192 games of NHL experience, while Gaudette has played 218 NHL games of his own.
In terms of where Dubas and the Leafs are at right now, the Leafs' GM revealed during his brief media session that there is still some work to be done. He revealed that he'll still be in the mix for some forwards and at least one defenseman, but he also revealed something brilliant about how the Leafs are going about their business during free agency.
According to Dubas, the Leafs are gunning for impact players who are motivated to step in and sign inexpensive, short-term deals in Toronto as "prove it" contracts to show teams around the league that they can be difference-makers.
-Kyle Dubas on what the Leafs are looking for in free agency
This is an absolutely genius tactic. Think about the 2017-18 Vegas Golden Knights, if you will. That group was a collection of players who teams didn't want or who teams basically gave away as incentive for the Golden Knights not to select a player that those teams wanted to keep.
The Golden Knights, a team of misfits, played hard to prove everyone wrong and burst onto the scene as an immediate contender. Many players came in and had career years as they looked to prove to themselves, their former teams and to the Golden Knights that they were capable of being useful pieces.
If the Leafs are setting themselves up to be a stepping stone for motivated players who are looking for a big-time deal in the not-too-distant future, all it's going to do is make the Leafs a more competitive team and a lot tougher to play against. Another angle here is that perhaps the Leafs could stumble upon a beauty or two along the way who may end up being a good fit and who may want to stick around longer term.
In doing things this way, Kyle Dubas is also setting up the Leafs to be very flexible. With shorter term deals, team-friendly deals, the Leafs can pick and choose who best fits what they're trying to do and move some of the pieces with whom they don't see a fit at the deadline for additional draft capital or potentially even package a few guys together to make a move to bring in an impact player who might better fit what they're looking for.
There aren't too many downsides to doing things this way. Hats off to Kyle Dubas with this one. It's a very intelligent strategy that could end up paying off in a number of ways.
