Even after the Mitch Marner saga, player agent Darren Ferris says it’s business as usual with Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brad Treliving.
The agent appeared on the 100% Hockey Podcast with Daren Millard and John Shannon last week to discuss Marner’s departure from the Maple Leafs and his arrival with the Vegas Golden Knights after a sign-and-trade in late June.
Toronto and Marner agreed to an eight-year, $96 million contract before sending him to Vegas in exchange for Nicolas Roy. Marner’s exit from the Maple Leafs was, and still is, a massive talking point amongst fans within Toronto.
However, during the interview with Millard and Shannon, Ferris indicated that nothing had changed within the relationship between the agent and GM, adding that the two had spoken about a free agent recently.
“[The relationship is] still cordial. I’ve known Brad quite a while. He’s a good man, and he’s got a tough job in front of him. Toronto’s not an easy organization to work in with all the noise on the outside, but he seems to weather it. Everything’s fine between us,” said Ferris.
“We were talking about a free agent that I have currently that’s still out there, just recently acquired, and we just had a discussion, and we continue to, I mean, it’s business as usual.”
Among the free agents still available under Ferris is defenseman Matt Grzelcyk. The 31-year-old is coming off a full season with the Pittsburgh Penguins, where he tallied one goal and 40 points while averaging 20:37 of ice time on the blue line.
Grzelcyk had the second most points among Penguins defensemen, and if he were on the Maple Leafs, he’d have been one point off Morgan Rielly for the team lead. This past season with Pittsburgh was his best year to date, as he registered career highs in assists and average ice time.
If there’s anything different about the upcoming season for the Maple Leafs, it’s the amount of quality defensemen they already have within the organization.
Any team, of course, would love to have as many defenders as possible, just in case injuries pop up, and the Maple Leafs have that. They’ve got the six defensemen (Rielly, Brandon Carlo, Chris Tanev, Jake McCabe, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, and Simon Benoit) who just helped push the Stanley Cup Champion Florida Panthers to seven games.
Toronto has also brought in Henry Thrun from the San Jose Sharks in the Ryan Reaves trade, plus they have Matt Benning, Dakota Mermis, Philippe Myers, Marshall Rifai, and William Villeneuve waiting in the ranks.
The only reason Toronto should bring Grzelcyk in is if they’re afraid of losing a couple of defensemen to waivers at the beginning of the season, which could very well occur.
Benning has mentioned he’d like a chance in the NHL with the Maple Leafs, or elsewhere. He could be a candidate to move if he has a strong training camp with Toronto and doesn’t make the team.
The Maple Leafs kept Myers as depth for most of last season, which I’d assume they’d do again after signing him to a two-year, $1.7 million contract in January. I could see them doing that with Thrun instead, depending on which player has a better training camp.
Adding Grzelcyk wouldn’t necessarily be a bad move, especially if he comes in on a professional tryout, similar to how Max Pacioretty and Steven Lorentz did last training camp. As it stands currently, though, the Maple Leafs have $1,919,722 in cap space, according to PuckPedia.com.
Would you rather see Toronto spend that on another depth defender like Grzelcyk, with the chance of losing a couple of defensemen at the start of the season to waivers? Or would you like to see Treliving keep that money for an addition at the trade deadline?
Either way, these last few weeks before training camp could be fascinating to watch if you’re a fan of the Maple Leafs.
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