The Toronto Maple Leafs will be a team to watch this offseason as they have multiple key free agents.
Toronto has Mitch Marner and John Tavares as pending free agents, while Matthew Knies is a pending RFA. Whether or not Marner returns is a big question, but NHL analyst Stephen Nixon of EditorinLeaf believes Toronto should also move on from Tavares.
“John Tavares has been an amazing member of the Leafs and is arguably a top-10 player in franchise history. Year-after-year, he delivers in the regular season and was a great captain for five years,” Nixon wrote. “However, now that he’s 34-years-old, I think Tavares and Toronto are going to part ways, unless a significant pay-decline is in store. If the Leafs were to sign Tavares to a three-year deal worth $5-6M AAV, then I think they’ll find a solution, but I don’t see a world where Tavares makes less than the Steven Stamkos deal ($8M x 4 years).”
Tavares is in the final year of his seven-year $77 million deal with the Maple Leafs. Although he is 34, he is having a stellar year, which could up his salary on the open market.
