The Toronto Maple Leafs may be focused on the upcoming playoffs, but at least part of their front office is looking forward to next year. The team has signed Kirill Semyonov to a one-year entry-level contract for the 2021-22 season.
Semyonov, 26, recently won the Gagarin Cup with Avangard Omsk in the KHL after putting up 26 points in 60 regular season games. The Maple Leafs have curated a pipeline of talent from the KHL in recent years, signing players like Nikita Zaitsev, Igor Ozhiganov, Ilya Mikheyev, Mikko Lehtonen, and Alexander Barabanov to their first NHL contracts. Of course, only Mikheyev remains in Toronto from that group, but the team obviously has the attention of top Russian (or in the case of Lehtonen, Finnish) players as a way into the NHL.
Now with Semyonov, the Maple Leafs are taking another swing at a player who has been an excellent producer in the KHL for several years. In 2019-20 he registered 46 points in 62 games, earning himself a trip to the league All-Star game. This isn’t a league-leading scoring talent the team is bringing over, but a potential depth piece that can fill out their bottom-six for the low price of an entry-level contract. Toronto continues to try and find bargains to improve the fringes of the roster while also paying top dollar to their superstars.