Free agent “frenzy” may be over, but there are still players available looking for contracts. The Toronto Maple Leafs have added one of those players, forward Calle Jarnkrok. The team has announced the deal, and the contract is a four-year contract with a $2.1MM average annual value.
Jarnkrok, 30, split 2021-22 with the Seattle Kraken and Calgary Flames. He arrived in Seattle as their choice from the Nashville Predators at the expansion draft, and was traded to Calgary for three draft picks. Jarnkrok played 66 games last season and scored 12 goals and 30 points in 66 games. Jarnkrok’s offensive production throughout his career has been largely consistent, and he’s finished around the 30-point range with around 15 goals in most of the years he’s spent in the NHL.
Jarnkrok offers positional versatility, as he can play center and the wing, and plays a 200-foot game that coaches can trust. The Maple Leafs lost speedy middle-six winger Ilya Mikheyev to the Vancouver Canucks earlier this week, so Jarnkrok can slide into their lineup and play his role as a two-way middle-sixer and penalty killer. Jarnkrok has featured on penalty kills in the past and got sporadic time on the Flames’ penalty kill and second-unit time on the Kraken’s penalty kill.
At 30 years old, the four-year term for Jarnkrok may be a bit risky. But his $2.1MM cap hit is definitely affordable, and if he can play to his normal 15-goal, 30 to 35-point form in Toronto this deal will be a solid investment for GM Kyle Dubas, and the sort of signing that coach Sheldon Keefe will greatly appreciate.
I like
An upgrade over the Spezza/Simmonds/Clifford types of signings. Still think there’s a trade coming, no cap room left to resign Engvall and Sandin (although they can go 10% over the cap in the offseason). Curious to see who gets moved, got a feeling Dubas has something planned that’ll make the rest of the moves he’s made make a bit more sense.
Are you new watching hockey? It doesn’t take much to be better then who you mentioned.
Well that would make his comment accurate wouldn’t it? Why throw shade
That’s what I said. Also, Spezza was a valuable signing and I will miss having him on the team. I’m happy he is sticking around in an off-ice role though. Are you new to reading?
Dubas & Co. have been after him forever, finally JT & Willy will have a player who can hang with them.
Bunting, Mathews, Marner
Jarnkrok, Tavares, Nylander
Robertson, Kampf, Kerfoot
Aube-Kubel, Gaudette, Engvall
Rielly/Sandin
Brodie/Giordano
Muzzin/ Lilegren
Holl
Murray
Samsonov
After signing D depth yesterday my guess is Holl will be moved to free up some money to extend Engvall & Sandin who are RFA’s and Dubas will call it a wrap.
why do you ha e Holl as the 7th guy if you think they are moving him?
@MoneyBallJustWorks – I think @emax is saying that he expects Holl to be moved, but until GMKD says when and names a replacement, he’ll just be a placeholder for the time being. So, he could’ve written “Some random guy from the Marlies on a two-way league minimum”, instead.
I see AK getting chopped as that’s the biggest contract for that spot which is moveable. I see PE in AK’s spot with Simmons locked into that 4th line RW
I see the D jumbled differently.
MR/TJB
JM/RS
MG/TL
The thing to remember is RS struggled when playing the off side.
IMO I hope JM is healthy as RS is a natural slide there.
And yes,PKS is lurking in Tronna.
Love the goaltending upgrades.
@Dave – Like your D-pairings there. If I’m reading CapFriendly’s Q.O. calculator right, I have PE and RS at $2082500 total, with TOR’s current cap space listed as $756,884, so if the Nic-NAK gets dumped, they’re still $325,616 over. And, thanks to GMKD’s propensity for handing out NMC/NTCs like they were candy, do you think they’ll have to play the LTIR game with somebody else’s bad contract? Even if they walk away from an arb ruling, it seems like something else might need to be done. Or, do they go short-benched for a while? Analyzing TOR’s cap situation is like playing the Whack-A-Mole game from Hell.
If AK is Aube-Kubel, he’s not getting moved. They literally just signed him
Sandin or holl is leaving, most likely sandin I would think since if holl leaves we a little short on rhd, kerfoot is gone simply due to his contract and versatility being worth more in trade. NAK I think has no chance of being moved, he has great peripherals and potential to play alongside Tavares due to his speed. Not sure how they plan to fit everybody and I find the Jarnkrok signing a strange one. We still have zero grittiness and size on the roster and that’s a big flaw, a lot of our forwards are undersized and get handled in the corners by opposing defense. Jarnkrok although decent player doesn’t help that at all. Dubas is great at making regular season rosters but fails at the playoff level largely due to North South speed game he likes to play. There will be more trades and tweaks so hard to fully judge the roster now but feels a lot like the same old same old, in the race for the presidents trophy but not the Stanley cup
Mac-Jablonski- you can’t walk away from an arbitration ruling under 4.5 million this yr. Anything under that and leafs have to honour the contract.
@bruin4ever – True enough. My bad. I didn’t take the extra time to look on PuckPedia, but relied on a couple of websites that, it turns out, aren’t accurate about arb rulings. PuckPedia’s info is still showing 2020, but at least it’s more complete than the other sites that came up first in the search list. I should’ve simply reviewed Hart Levine’s radio hit from yesterday, as I think he did mention this, specifically.
Can he play goal?
Our goaltending is fine. We need to improve our in zone defense and limit chances. Colorado won the cup with a goalie having a 900 save% so it proves what’s in front of the net is just as important and whos in net.
“One night in Jarnkrok makes the hard guys crumble…”