Leafs expected to sign center Nick Shore

According to Elliotte Friedman, in his piece today for Sportsnet, Toronto is going to be signing depth center Nick Shore as an unrestricted free agent:

Shore spent last season in the Russian KHL playing for Metallurg Magnitogorsk, scoring 16 points in 37 games. The NHLe calculator tool from Dobber Prospects’ Frozen Tools has this as being equivalent to 26 points on an 82 game season. Nothing amazing, but he will be a good depth option for the Leafs. He may even rotate time in that slot with new Leaf Jason Spezza, or share the line with one of them on the wing and one of them in the middle.

He has played quite a bit in the NHL in a depth role previously, including time with the Kings, Flames, and Senators.

Shore is 26 years old and will come in working to secure a more permanent position in the NHL. This an adept move to ‘shore’ up the Leafs’ bottom 6, and continues a string of major restructuring that the Leafs are undergoing to make room for Matthews and Marner’s new deals.

This graphic from last year, when Shore went unqualified by the Flames, suggests that he’s a valuable player that deserves the shot:

It will be interesting to see how the depth of the Leafs shakes out with all of the new additions, and the old pieces that are still around, like Frederik Gauthier. There’s a lot of pieces in the mix, and a lot of changes from last year. This is a solid add for Toronto, at the end of the day, adding a good player for cheap.

The details of the contract are unfortunately not available yet, but I would hazard to guess the contract will be similar to the Spezza deal, for 1 year and $700k. The full information will be added here once that is available.