“We’ll be interviewing as a team.”
Step Brothers was onto something and interviewing as a team is something that Brady Skjei and Brett Pesce should exploit.
The Carolina Hurricanes duo has spent the majority of their time on ice together as a pairing since 2020-21 with 986 minutes together last season and 1301 5v5 minutes together in the preceding season. The duo has played tough minutes on a successful, strong defensive team, and for a team like the Leafs that needs to add multiple top four defencemen, going this route seems like the perfect place to start on July 1st.
The Skjei-Pesce pairing would easily have been the most effective shutdown pairing on the Maple Leafs last season and Jaccob Slavin is often considered the primary shutdown guy in Carolina, a greater percentage of Pesce’s icetime was against top line competition, and Skjei’s time on ice against top competition was only 8 minutes off from Slavin’s. The trio were all utilized against almost equally against the best players in the NHL. A move in this direction likely improves both Morgan Rielly and Jake McCabe as well given that they’d be taking on a level of competition better suited to their abilities.
Aside from being a successful pairing the duo also fall on the short list of unrestricted free agent defencemen who are 30 years old or younger, over six feet tall, over 180 lbs, and play at least 18 minutes a night. There are only 5 defencemen who fit into that criteria, the others being Matt Roy, Brandon Montour, and Matthew Dumba. While Roy and Montour are strong options as well, the Panthers’ intentions with Montour still aren’t clear and still fall at around the same ability level as Skjei and Pesce if acquired individually.
I’m sure the stat that isn’t lost on Leafs fans is that Pesce and Skjei have the lowest hit counts of the group and while they will make the Leafs defence tougher to play against, they aren’t “tough.” If that is a need the Leafs would either have to look elsewhere or bring in additional toughness in the traditional sense.
The biggest barrier to looking at this duo will be the Hurricanes. Both Skjei and Pesce have expressed interest in returning to Carolina and while the Hurricanes have other significant unrestricted free agents like Guentzel and Teravainen to make decisions on, as well as expensive restricted free agents like Seth Jarvis and Martin Necas, the Canes have $24M to work with and history shows defence being a priority, even if Eric Tulsky could take the team in a new direction.
Using Evolving Hockey’s contract predictions, Brady Skjei is listed at around $7.5M and Brett Pesce came in around $5.5M, and while that Skjei number is probably very close, the Pesce number seems a little low. The duo likely costs around $13M-14M though and perhaps keeping the duo intact and utilizing extra years of term can help land the pair at a friendly price (although the contract projections are already based on 6+ year deals.)
If the Leafs went with the duo it would involve a commitment to cheaper forwards, possibly entry level rookies like Fraser Minten and Easton Cowan being a part of the Leafs 2024-25 lineup. It also means going with a cheaper tandem goaltender rather than looking for a true starter. The upgraded defence does mitigate that last risk though as the Hurricanes have proven.
While Skjei and Pesce are the best of a limited ideal free agency filtering, they are far from the only options available too. The players listed in the table above leans on age and size being important factors, but players like Dylan DeMelo, Sean Walker, and Chris Tanev are also part of the expanded free agency class, and trades also represent a viable path for the Leafs.
Both Pesce and Skjei have been speculated on as potential targets for the Leafs, but so has just about every other available defenceman. Only two more weeks to go until the Leafs provide some answers.
Data from Evolving Hockey, Puck IQ and Natural Stat Trick
