Monday Mailbag: Justin Answers The Heck Out Of Your Questions

It’s Monday, and that means it’s mailbag day. I’ll be taking over for Jeff this week, and look for other members of the TLN writing staff to take the wheel in future weeks as well. They’re all (relatively) smart people and they all have (relatively) good opinions (sometimes).

Let’s get to it.

I imagine it’ll be P.A. Parenteau. He’s on pace to score 20 goals this season, and every single playoff-bound team out there will be looking to add 20-goal scorers as the trade deadline approaches. They’ll also be looking to fit them under the salary cap, and there aren’t many 20-goal scorers out there that are only making $1.5M this year. 

Now, that’s not to say that Parenteau will fetch the Leafs an outrageous return, but it should be enough to deem Toronto’s sign-and-flip strategy with Parenteau a success. I think it’ll be something like a second round draft pick, or a B-level prospect.

The Leafs have a lot of RFAs to deal with this summer. Not only do they have to put pen-to-paper on the three you mentioned, but there’s also Martin Marincin, Frank Corrado, Garret Sparks, Scott Harrington, Stuart Percy, Josh Leivo, Sam Carrick, Casey Bailey and the recently acquired Jeremy Morin. They’ll be busy, but some of those negotiations will be much easier than others. 

If we’re sticking to Morgan Rielly, Nazem Kadri and Peter Holland, though, I think it’s Rielly that’s the easiest to get signed. With Rielly, there’s no doubt that the Leafs want to keep him in Toronto for the long haul. They could go for a bridge deal, in which case Rielly has very little leverage and will pretty much have to sign it, or they could go longterm and pay a little more upfront. 

Personally, I like the latter plan. With Toronto looking to hand the reins to their young talent over the next few seasons, you figure there will be a little extra cap space to play with. Why not give Rielly a Roman Josi-like deal (7 years, $4M per year)? That way, Rielly’s contract will look amazing right around the time when Toronto needs to re-up players like William Nylander and Mitch Marner.

James van Riemdyk – Nazem Kadri – Leo Komarov

Joffrey Lupul – Tyler Bozak – Michael Grabner

Daniel Winnik – Byron Froese – Mark Arcobello

Josh Leivo – Peter Holland – Jeremy Morin

Jake Gardiner – Dion Phaneuf

Morgan Rielly – Matt Hunwick

Martin Marincin – Frank Corrado

Jonathan Bernier

James Reimer

I’m a half-decent axe-thrower. 

I think Jeremy Morin is probably good enough to play in the NHL as an offensive-minded third line guy and, maybe if he impresses, could perform spot duty in the top six. It couldn’t have been easy trying to crack Chicago’s lineups over the past few years, but his short stint in Columbus wasn’t all that much to write home about either. Simply put, I don’t think he should be with the Marlies for much longer, but I don’t see a tremendous amount of ‘untapped potential’ either. 

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