The Toronto Maple Leafs have added another Swedish defenseman: former Dallas Stars blueliner John Klingberg. The team has signed Klingberg to an undisclosed contract, per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman. According to Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli, Klingberg has signed a one-year deal. The team confirmed the deal, which carries a $4.15MM cap hit.
This signing is a major opportunity for Klingberg, who’ll now get a chance to play in a top-four role under some of the brightest lights in hockey. Klingberg was originally a top free agent of last year’s class but ultimately had to settle on a one-year contract with the Anaheim Ducks.
He had a very difficult season split between Anaheim and the Minnesota Wild, and is now again signing a “prove-it” deal.
Only this time, he’s signed with a consistent regular-season juggernaut rather than a team anticipating another year outside the playoffs looking in.
Klingberg finished with 33 points in 67 games, a decent total but not quite up to the high standard for offensive production he set earlier in his career.
He’ll now have a chance to return to the stratosphere of offensive production he’s been more accustomed to throughout his career, as he’s likely going to end up partnered with either Mark Giordano or Jake McCabe. Those two are well-regarded defensive defensemen who will afford Klingberg the offensive freedom to play a more aggressive, pace-pushing offensive game.
If Klingberg can manage to find a role on Toronto’s power play, the odds of him having a productive season increase even further. Morgan Rielly is entrenched as Toronto’s top offensive blueliner, but Klingberg can settle in as their second option and rack up points alongside all of the offensive talent in head coach Sheldon Keefe’s lineup.
Some might criticize this deal as an inefficient use of scarce cap dollars by new Toronto general manager Brad Treliving, and those concerns definitely have merit.
With Rielly already on their roster and the team maybe in need of more well-rounded defensive help, was Klingberg truly their most optimal target? Was adding him for more than $4MM a wise choice when Erik Gustafsson took just $825k from the New York Rangers?
Those are fair questions to ask, and they likely will be by an always on top of things Toronto media. But the best way for both Klingberg and Treliving to silence those questions will be for the defenseman to go out and have a vintage season, a year reminiscent of 2017-18 when Klingberg scored 67 points, led NHL blueliners in assists, and made the All-Star game.
Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
What?
So he likes losing
Get rid of Reilly for sure..if any takers…
Toronto media and fans new whipping boy
Oh boy. The Klingberg NHL Cities Tour continues.
Come on you guys are killing me right now, Reaves now Klingberg?
Lol, being from Detroit, I’d rather have Holl.
Definite desperation move here. Needed to do something more than Reeves and they couldn’t find any one to sign. So. Here we are with Klingberg.
Getting the puck out of the d-zone was an issue for the Leafs in the playoffs, so I can kinda see how a move of this type makes sense. But the specific player doesn’t seem like a great fit.
– He’s great on the PP but the Leafs are one of the best with the man advantage already.
– Which LHD-man is he going to be paired with? Rielly? McCabe? Neither are good enough defensively to make up for Klingberg’s shortcomings.
– Does this mean Liljegren is destined for 3rd pairing duties again? Seems like a waste of his budding talent.
Re-signing Erik Gustafsson at 1/5 of the cost would’ve given the cap-tight Leafs much more flexibility.
I’m happy it’s still baseball season
Even the Jays are looking better off than the leafs right now
With Timmins essentially a younger version of this exact player at a quarter of the cost it’s truly impossible to understand what the point of this is.