Toronto Maple Leafs should re-sign forward Ilya Mikheyev

The Toronto Maple Leafs made a nice bargain signing last May when they added forward Ilya Mikheyev on a one-year deal. Despite having his season shortened by an injury, he deserves an extension.

The Toronto Maple Leafs season is currently up in the air. If the Stanley Cup Playoffs happen, the Leafs will get a chance to redeem themselves of their previous postseason woes. But even if it doesn’t, forward Ilya Mikheyev was a huge bright spot for the team.

They signed him to a one-year deal last May. Mikheyev was a pleasant surprise for the Leafs, picking up eight goals and 15 assists for 23 points in 39 games. Unfortunately, his season was cut short after suffering a severed artery and injuring several tendons thanks to taking a skate to his hand on Dec. 27.

The Leafs need cheap, productive players if they’re going to be successful. They’ve invested a lot of money into guys like Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, John Tavares, and William Nylander. So getting cheap guys who can produce is critical.

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Mikheyev primarily played with Alexander Kerfoot on the third line, though he also spent some time with John Tavares. The Leafs outscored their opponents 27-24 with him on the ice at 5v5 and 30-24 at even strength.

He posted especially promising numbers if you look at his rate stats. Mikheyev was indisputably one of the Leafs most productive forwards this season at 5v5. Here’s where he ranked in several key categories among Leafs forwards (minimum 200 5v5 minutes). All stats are at 5v5 and are courtesy of Natural Stat Trick.

Goals per hour: 0.7 (9th)
Total assists per hour: 1.74 (1st)
Primary assists per hour: 0.93 (3rd)

Toronto Maple Leafs Need To Keep Him

This offseason, the Maple Leafs have several players to worry about re-signing. One of them is Mikheyev, who will be a restricted free agent. He’ll have arbitration rights, which could potentially raise his price.

While Mikheyev was certainly productive while healthy, his injury likely cost him quite a bit of money. He’s still somewhat of a question mark because the Leafs didn’t even get to see him for half of a full season. Though if the regular season or postseason is played, Mikheyev could make a return and that might help his case.

In a recent interview with Sportsnet 590, Mikheyev’s agent, Dan Milstein, discussed his client’s future. At the 7:26 mark, he started talking about Mikheyev. After discussing another one of his clients who is interested in the Maple Leafs (Alexander Barbanov), here’s what Milstein had to say about the soup-loving Mikheyev.

"We have had a couple of conversations earlier. January 1st was the first day that we were allowed to go and make an offer. Basically, they called to let us know they were interested in retaining Ilya. Also, we had a conversation maybe about a month or so ago."

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Due to his injury, Mikheyev likely won’t get much of a raise. And for what it’s worth, Mikheyev wants to stay with the Leafs next season. As long as he’s reasonably priced, and there’s no reason to think he won’t be, the Maple Leafs must make keeping him a priority. Depth scoring is hard to find and the Leafs have someone who can contribute in a smaller role in Mikheyev.

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