Ilya Mikheyev's breakout season.

[Mess]

Ilya Mikheyev is coming off a breakout season with 21 goals in just 53 games including 4 on the PP and 4 more SH, and really started showing progress using his wheels to generate offense.

He is 27 years old and a pending UFA after making $1.645 mil last year.

Will he be back with the Leafs as one of those secondary scoring pieces. or will his new next contract be too much for him to stay?

What is the price to keep him?

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[dubplatepressure]

No he won't be back - he is rumoured to be seeking somewhere around $4M/y.

 

[A1LeafNation]

We'd actually be able to keep top 9 players if Tavares wasn't on the team.

 

[Mess]

I'd prefer they dealt Kerfoot @$3.5 mil for future's [prospect or pick] and re-signed Mikheyev with that cap space instead.

 

[ACC1224]

Cap hell means he must go. He's priced himself out of the bargain bin where Dubas likes to shop for the bottom six.

 

[banks]

Too expensive to keep. And that's fine. There's players in the system that need a middle 6 opportunity.

 

[WTFMAN99]

3 years and the man couldn't beat a goalie once in the playoffs.

Both goals this year were empty netters.

He's an interesting player but I would move on.

 

[The Iceman]

We'd actually be able to keep top 9 players if Tavares wasn't on the team.

Without Tavares that would be top 8 of 9 wouldn't it?

 

[Buds17]

A return seems unlikely, unless he isn't looking for the highest bidder or the biggest role. Retaining Mikheyev at the expense of Kerfoot might make sense if the AAV is the same/similar enough and the team isn't worried about losing a player with centre/winger versatility. I suppose there could even be a scenario in which the team moves on from both if the desire is to bring in a new face for the top six, and if they also don't mind considerably altering the look of the PK up front?

 

[ShaneFalco]

In the playoffs, the Leafs’ bottom six – which included some combination of Ilya Mikheyev, Pierre Engvall, David Kampf, Ondrej Kase, Colin Blackwell, Jason Spezza, Kyle Clifford, and Wayne Simmonds – combined for three goals, and Mikheyev scored two empty netters. By comparison, Tampa Bay’s bottom six of Ross Colton, Nick Paul, Branden Hagel, Corey Perry, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, and Patrick Maroon combined for 10 goals (no empty netters). However we slice it, the gap in depth scoring was significant.

In the playoff previous, the Leafs’ bottom six contributed four goals – Jason Spezza scored three of them, and one came when he moved into the top six. Joe Thornton scored the other on the power play. In the year before against Columbus, the only bottom-six forward (in terms of time on ice) to score at all was Nick Robertson.

This has been a consistent problem for three years running under this management regime. The difference this past playoff is that the top forwards were full marks for producing. While we hear all the time that a team lives and dies by its stars – which is largely true – when the gap is this tight between top teams, every single player matters.

In previous years, the Leafs loaded the first line with ice time – because they had nothing in the bottom six – and it gassed their top players. This year, they did have some substance in the bottom six – specifically, the third line was legitimately solid – but they weren’t able to provide much offensively. The fourth line was generally a nonfactor outside of taking penalties.

How can the Maple Leafs remake their "secondary core" this offseason? -- Offseason Game Plan, Part 1

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[Arthur Morgan]

We'd actually be able to keep top 9 players if Tavares wasn't on the team.

Yup but we would have been able to if covid didnt put us into a flat cap era. if only we knew right

 

[The Iceman]

Ilya Mikheyev is coming off a breakout season with 21 goals in just 53 games including 4 on the PP and 4 more SH, and really started showing progress using his wheels to generate offense.

He is 27 years old and a pending UFA after making $1.645 mil last year.

Will he be back with the Leafs as one of those secondary scoring pieces. or will his new next contract be too much for him to stay?

What is the price to keep him?

Mikheyev's Shooting % went from 8.2%
To 6.5%
And last season 14.3%

Almost identically to Max Domi who went 8.3, to 6 to 13.8% when he had his 28 goal season.
Domi hit the skids hard after he got paid. I wonder what Mikheyev will do.

And IM has been a non-factor in playoff games. Time to move off him and his inflated contract to be.

 

[ShaneFalco]

Mikheyev has four points in 19 career playoff games – all of which came in this past playoff – and two of those four points were empty-net goals. Kerfoot has one even-strength goal in 19 playoff games as a Leaf and three total even-strength playoff goals in 37 career playoff games. You could argue a case for getting rid of more than just Mikheyev this summer.

 

[notbias]

Sometimes you care about playoffs, sometimes you don't, weird how you are all selective there.

No, don't keep him, we need room for some young guys to play too.

Cap hell means he must go. He's priced himself out of the bargain bin where Dubas likes to shop for the bottom six.

Didn't we spend more than Tampa on our bottom six?

 

[notDatsyuk]

I'd prefer they dealt Kerfoot @$3.5 mil for future's [prospect or pick] and re-signed Mikheyev with that cap space instead.

Yes. Put him and Nylander with a center who can skate wirh them and they would be a dangerous second line.

 

[AvroArrow]

We'd actually be able to keep top 9 players if Tavares wasn't on the team.

Or if Dubas was capable of negotiating contracts. Still blows my mind how he bent himself over to sign RFA contracts, he had all the bargaining power.

 

[Fogelhund]

I can't wait for threads on Mikheyev, waxing poetically about how it was a mistake to let him go, and Dubas screwed up, from the same people, posting we need to let him go. Hindsight Leafs Board at it's peak.

 

[zeke]

Didn't we spend more than Tampa on our bottom six?

Bottom 6 caphits:

Mikheyev 1.645 --- Hagel 1.5 ------- Compher 3.5
Kampf 1.5 ----------- Colton 1.25 ---- Lehkonen 1.15
Engvall 1.25 --------- Perry 1.0 -------- Kubel 1.0
Kase 1.25 ---------- Bellemare 1.0 --- Helm 1.0
Clifford 1.00 --------- Maroon 0.9 ---- Newhook 0.9
Simmonds 0.9 ------ Nash 0.75 ----- O'Connor 0.725
Spezza 0.75 ---------- Paul 0.75 ------ Sturm 0.725
Blackwell 0.725 ---------------------------- Cogliano 0.5

 

[zeke]

Bottom 6 caphits:

Mikheyev 1.645 --- Hagel 1.5 ------- Compher 3.5
Kampf 1.5 ----------- Colton 1.25 ---- Lehkonen 1.15
Engvall 1.25 --------- Perry 1.0 -------- Kubel 1.0
Kase 1.25 ---------- Bellemare 1.0 --- Helm 1.0
Clifford 1.00 --------- Maroon 0.9 ---- Newhook 0.9
Simmonds 0.9 ------ Nash 0.75 ----- O'Connor 0.725
Spezza 0.75 ---------- Paul 0.75 ------ Sturm 0.725
Blackwell 0.725 ---------------------------- Cogliano 0.5

That's the caphits for the usual bottom 6 forwards. The actual lowest 6 (+2) caphits.

Kampf 1.5 ------- Hagel 1.5 ------ Nichushkin 2.5
Engvall 1.25 ---- Colton 1.25 --- Lehkonen 1.15
Kase 1.25 -------- Perry 1.0 -------- Kubel 1.0
Clifford 1.0 ----- Bellemare 1.0 -- Helm 1.0
Bunting 0.9 ------ Maroon 0.9 ----- Newhook 0.9
Simmonds 0.9 -- Nash 0.75 ---- O'Connor 0.725
Spezza 0.75 ------ Paul 0.75 ------- Sturm 0.725
Blackwell 0.725 ------------------------- Cogliano 0.5

 

[Stephen]

Mikheyev's Shooting % went from 8.2%
To 6.5%
And last season 14.3%

Almost identically to Max Domi who went 8.3, to 6 to 13.8% when he had his 28 goal season.
Domi hit the skids hard after he got paid. I wonder what Mikheyev will do.

And IM has been a non-factor in playoff games. Time to move off him and his inflated contract to be.

I think Mikheyev has a Kulemin type career arc where he’ll have exactly one 30 goal fluke season in an otherwise underachieving career of stone hands in close. He just doesn’t have that Nichushkin Burakovsky finish.

 

[Nylanderthal]

We'd actually be able to keep top 9 players if Tavares wasn't on the team.

Yes let’s keep bottom of line up guys and overpay for mid tier glut instead of having ppg stud 2way C’s on the team.

I'd prefer they dealt Kerfoot @$3.5 mil for future's [prospect or pick] and re-signed Mikheyev with that cap space instead.

I’d rather they direct that money to an actual impactful player and find value for bottom 6 roles like other contenders do.
The absolute worst use of cap space is on the middle of the line up guys who you want to keep around.

 

[DraftSchmaft]

We'd actually be able to keep top 9 players if Tavares wasn't on the team.

We'd get swept if we had to rely on mik over tavares in round 1. You have odd requests.

 

[rocketman588]

Mik is fine I think he's relatively replaceable however.

I probably wouldn't give him much more then 2.5

 

[ToneDog]

Mik is fine I think he's relatively replaceable however.

I probably wouldn't give him much more then 2.5

Good player under $2m per but wonder if we can find a better UFA for 2.5m. (Marchment, Rodriguez, Sturm). I don't think Mik is going to win you a playoff game like a Palat.

 

[leafsfan5]

He has 0 goals on a goalie in 19 playoff games

Let him walk