Leafs’ Gardiner eyeing the “JVR” route in free agency. Trade to come?

It’s been quite the offseason for the Toronto Maple Leafs front office staff. After watching longtime players like James van Riemsdyk, Tyler Bozak and Leo Komarov walk away via free agency, Leafs rookie general manager Kyle Dubas snapped up superstar free agent John Tavares. Dubas also inked forward Tyler Ennis to a new contract and he’s been embroiled in contract negotiations with sniper William Nylander for over two months now. 

Next summer though may be even busier as Dubas has to negotiate new deals for budding superstars Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner. But there’s one pending unrestricted free agent everyone seems to be forgetting about… defenseman Jake Gardiner. The 28 year old Gardiner’s five year, $20 million deal with the Leafs expires on June 30th and he’s slated to hit the open market as an unrestricted free agent for the first time in his career. Will the Leafs walk away from him like they did with JVR, Bozak and Komarov? Or, will they elect to re-up him to a deal midseason? Another option is to deal Gardiner before the trade deadline so as to not “lose him for nothing” as the team did with the above mentioned trio.

As for Gardiner himself, he admitted to The Toronto Sun’s Terry Koshan that he’s using van Riemsdyk’s situation last year as an example heading into 2018-19. 

Check it out:

Gardiner, heading into final year of contract: “Hopefully I stay in Toronto. But it’s out of my control right now and just kind of wait and see what happens.” Said he will use van Riemsdyk, who put contract issues aside to have good season in 2017-18, as an example.

It’s true that JVR’s contract status didn’t prevent him from having a successful season in 2017-18. The 29 year old forward put up a career high 36 goals last season and earned himself a brand new five year, $35 million deal from the Philadelphia Flyers. If Gardiner can put aside the distractions and build off of last season’s career high 52 point campaign, there’s no reason to think that he won’t score BIG TIME on his next contract, just as his former teammate did, as well. The only question remains… will that next contract be with the Leafs or someone else?