Mailbag: Responses From The 6

I’m going to partake in the biggest tourist-trap weekend of the year in Toronto. Specifically, I’m headed down to Molson Ampitheatre for two days of OVO Fest. Drake puts on an awesome main event night, and I’m excited to see what the Outkast hype is all about today (I was too young for their early material and in my ‘lol le wrong generation give me old rock’ stage’ in the end of the first part of their career). With that said, I’ll be gone for most of the day today and tomorrow, so I’m going to cop out and, well..

You have to think some team takes a chance on him. He hasn’t been a great relative possession player in the past couple of years, but he hasn’t been flat out awful either. He’s good for 30 points over a full season, and has a lot of the physical talents that teams like to take chances on (good skating, vision, etc).

Combine that with his previous high profile and the fact that he’s still only 24, and there has to be a match somewhere. I imagine that he’s trying to avoid the “prove it” contract right now, seeing as whoever signs him to a 1 year deal would gain his RFA rights and control his destiny, but he’ll likely have to take one if nobody comes knocking in a couple of weeks. 

Very doubtful. He’s a skilled player, but unless he plays the best hockey of his life in training camp and leaves them no choice but to put him on the 2nd line at Right Wing, I don’t see space for him to succeed. Odds are, they’ll want him to play the role of AHL superstar once again, which might be a factor in his lack of contract at the moment.

Personally, I don’t see it. My personal speculation? Frattin was acquired because it was a low-cost move in case they weren’t able to sign half of the bottom six world in free agency. They did, and now he’s kind of “just there”. We’ll see what happens with him in camp, but I wouldn’t lose sleep if he hit waivers.

D’Amigo is much better suited to a bottom six specialist’s role, and it’s a shame to lose him, but ultimately his actual ability is pretty interchangeable in this league. 

While I think Sparks gets the edge in starts between the two, I don’t think he’ll be playing a significant amount more than Christopher Gibson. I wouldn’t at all be surprised to see a 40-36 split of games played, meaning this will be one of those super fun 1A-1B situations. He won’t be required to carry the load in the way that MacIntyre did.

Now, as for whether they’re capable of that; I’m not expecting either goaltender to play as well as MacIntyre last year. The Marlies are going to have to get better at winning games with their skaters if they want to repeat the same success that they’ve had in previous years. But both Gibson and Sparks had strong stretches with the team last year, and seem to be developing a bit better than expected. Between the two of them, I’m sure one of them can at least be AHL decent and keep the team afloat.

Subban is obviously off the market now, but if he wasn’t, it would definitely require a cap clearance to make this happen. The Salary Cap is typically hard pressed to go up more than about 8-9%, and in some years hasn’t seen much of an increase at all. Even if everything went exactly right and the Cap went up by 10% in each of the next two years, we’re looking at a 14.5M increase.

Subban earned 9M as an RFA. As a UFA, he’d probably be looking at over 10, and the same could be said about Stamkos (probably more so). Assume they both take discounts in this scenario and sign for a Toews/Kane-like 10.5M, that’s 21 million. The Leafs still need to free up 6.5 million. In those two years, the only contract above 3 million to come off the books is Cody Franson, who would have to be replaced. Both goalies would need new deals, Nazem Kadri is an RFA next season, and Morgan RIelly would need a new deal at the same time as these guys.

The Leafs would absolutely have to clean house. Just Stamkos, though? That’s doable. Assuming he wants to come, and the Leafs keep their cool in terms of spending money for a while.