TLN Monday Mailbag: June 6th

Hey! I’m not dead, no matter what my Twitter timeline might lead you to believe. This offseason is just too fun to escape, and will only get more fun in the coming weeks. With that in mind, I reached back into the mailbag and grabbed a few of your questions from the past week. Let’s begin!

Holland will likely be one of the odd men out on the roster, if only because of how many centres the team will have next year, if not forwards in general. Toronto will have Auston Matthews, Nazem Kadri, and Brook Laich as locks down the middle. Tyler Bozak is likely trade bait, and one of the top two spots will go to either William Nylander or a certain July 1st target. Holland would have to convert to left wing to stand a chance, but even that’s a position with James Van Riemsdyk, Colin Greening, Milan Michalek, Nikita Soshnikov, and a variety of others competing for spots.

I can’t imagine the return on him would be high; he could be part of a quantity for quality deal, or he could end up going for a B prospect or an unspectacular draft pick. He’ll be one of many that the team will entertain offers to get off the books, as long as they don’t look like weak negotiators at the end of it. Either way, it’s hard to imagine that he’ll be on next year’s team; a shame given how much he seems to enjoy being here and given that he’s a decent contributor, but that’s the secret shame of an upswinging team, isn’t it?

I think he’s somebody that the Leafs would certainly kick tires on, but I can’t imagine the Jets being as aggressive about trading their top young defenceman as people think they are. The money might be speculated to be steep, but the offseason is a long one when you’re a restricted free agent in a world where nobody actually tries to tend offer sheets.

Best player available should always be the mantra, but there’s an outside chance that a goaltender could be the best player available at that point in the draft. Ryan Fancey wrote an interesting piece about Carter Hart as an option in that range that makes the case and it’s hard to disagree. I don’t think it’s a move that requires going off the board, though; I’d rather take chances on some undrafted slight-overagers at that point.

The CHL’s transfer agreement requires that any player who was drafted from there, not on loan from another league, play major junior until they turn 20 unless they’re graduating to the NHL. This applies to the North American pros as well, which has been the primary subject of late as people debate whether the AHL would be a better situation for him.

Unfortunately, evil can prevail at times. Especially in the past half decade of the NHL. Case in point: