James van Riemsdyk has found comfort in familiar places throughout his NHL career and there’s a legitimate case for him to consider the Toronto Maple Leafs next fall. The 35-year-old is the highest-ranked remaining free agent on Daily Faceoff’s board at the time of this filing, but a market hasn’t emerged for the veteran winger.
Toronto has finite cap space available, hovering just under $1 million under the cap for the 2024-25 season and this is before accounting for Connor Dewar’s arbitration hearing, while Easton Cowan may genuinely crack the roster on an entry-level contract. They have to be discerning about the remaining room available and though teams cannot sign players with the express purpose of placing them on long-term injured reserve, Jani Hakanpaa’s signing still hasn’t been confirmed by the Maple Leafs and when the proverbial dust settles, the team could place Hakanpaa and his reported on $1.5 million cap hit into the LTIR pool.
It’s important to note that the Maple Leafs finished first in 5-on-5 goals during the regular season and their offense from October-April has rarely been an issue during the Auston Matthews Era. van Riemsdyk registered 11 goals and 38 points in 71 games during his one-year stint with the Boston Bruins, while the team posted a 54.36 percent of the expected goals when he was on the ice at 5-on-5. Those are stellar numbers for a bottom-six forward and van Riemsdyk would provide the Maple Leafs with a known quantity, capable of secondary offense.
Maple Leafs fans don’t need another reminder but van Riemsdyk was quietly effective for the Bruins during the 2024 first-round series, opening the scoring during Game 4 when Ryan Reaves coughed the puck up in Toronto’s defensive third. Boston’s third line played bully ball against teams, physically wilting teams into submission and the team controlled 61.8 percent of the expected goals when van Riemsdyk was on the ice during the playoffs. It’s not that van Riemsdyk is an overly physical player but he’s more than capable of sealing off walls and making life difficult on the forecheck.
Toronto has simply experimented too much with its bottom-six combinations during the Matthews Era and van Riemsdyk will be a known option. He wasn’t always a part of Jim Montgomery’s optimal lineups as the Bruins tinkered with several combinations during the regular season, but he finished with 25 points at 5-on-5, tied for 213th league-wide — it may not seem thrilling at first, but when you considered that he tied with Sam Bennett, Jake DeBrusk, Mika Zibanejad and Sean Couturier among others, the case for van Riemsdyk becomes a lot more compelling.
James van Riemsdyk
1-0 Boston pic.twitter.com/bK15F9iaCe
— Omar (@TicTacTOmar) April 28, 2024
Continuity seems to matter in the NHL and van Riemsdyk’s return to the Maple Leafs would likely be fully welcomed by the team’s veteran core, after leaving the organization following the 2017-18 season to re-join the Philadelphia Flyers. It’s a different Maple Leafs team than the one he left, as Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander are no longer promising upstarts but well into the middle of their primes, carrying the weight of expectations cast upon a team with all the talent in the world and a 57-year Stanley Cup drought. John Tavares joined the Maple Leafs the summer van Riemsdyk left in free agency and Morgan Rielly would be the lone holdover from his previous tenure.
At this stage of his career, all that seems to matter to van Riemsdyk is the pursuit of a Stanley Cup and Toronto is well-positioned to make him an offer — it may come under his projected market value, but we’re midway through July and now it’s incumbent upon Brad Treliving and his staff to see how they can maximize value and a known asset within the team’s bottom-six ahead of the fall.
All stats from NHL.com and Natural Stat Trick.
