One of newly hired General Manager Brad Treliving’s first moves last offseason was extending centre David Kampf to a four-year, $2.4M AAV contract. The move kind of came out of nowhere, seemingly giving Kampf too much term and probably too much money per season.
A year later, a lot has stayed the same. Kampf is a useful player, a 4C who defends well and plays top penalty kill minutes, but doesn’t do much of anything offensively. These types of players have a place in the NHL, no doubt, but Kampf’s contract pays him like he’s something a bit more than the average fourth-line centre.
With Connor Dewar projected to make around $1.4M in arbitration, and Ryan Reaves coming in at $1.35M, that creates a fourth line making over $5M. That’s just too much for a team paying four forwards over $40M, consistently strapped for cash.
Kampf is still useful
This isn’t a situation where the Leafs would need to attach a pick to get a team to take Kampf. He’s still a very good fourth-line centre, just not one Toronto can afford.
He takes about as many defensive zone faceoffs as anyone in the league, and plays top penalty kill minutes. Even though the Leafs PK was a disaster last season, he has a track record of success on the penalty kill and is okay with being given the toughest assignments on the team.
Any team with cap space could use him. Any team with a struggling penalty kill could use him, and any team trying to upgrade their checking line could use him.
Last year was a tough one for the Leafs fourth line, with Reaves starting the season about as bad as anyone could have imagined which turned the whole unit to mush. Kampf has struggled since losing Pierre Engvall and Ondrej Kase (that seems so long ago), but hasn’t exactly been put in the best situations to succeed.
Other teams know this, and know that if put in the right spots, Kampf can be an excellent shutdown centre. He might not be able to handle a stereotypical third line, because of his lack of offence, but he can absolutely anchor a checking line. That’s still useful.
The return in a Kampf deal would be the cap space. He won’t fetch the Leafs some valuable asset, but he’s good enough that other teams would still want him.
Not a luxury the Maple Leafs can afford
The Maple Leafs top six next year will make about $50M. Unfortunately for the rest of the team, that means players on entry-level contracts or league minimum deals are pretty useful.
The “third line” that will include some combination of Pontus Holmberg, Calle Jarnkrok, Bobby McMann, Matthew Knies and/or Max Domi will actually make less than the “fourth line” as currently constructed, but that’s not really a good thing.
The Maple Leafs haven’t scored at all in the playoffs recently, and paying the fourth line over $5M while the third “scoring” line gets crushed by the opposition isn’t a winning strategy. The Leafs can find guys like Kampf for $1.5M lower than he makes, they seemingly can’t find point producers making that much.
We all know the Leafs team isn’t built in the most efficient way, not even close, and this is what happens. The defence has been brutal, so all the cap space this offseason was used on signing one of the best defenceman available. Giving himself another $1.5M to play with by moving Kampf and replacing him with a guy making under a million would do Treliving a lot of good.
What was the plan?
Was Kampf really seen as a formidable 3C by Treliving when he signed? It’s hard to think he was, but that would explain the cap hit. Getting beat out by Fraser Minten for the role last training camp would be a pretty bad sign if that was the case.
Keefe definitely tried rolling with a Kampf-led third line at times, and when he was surrounded by Engvall and Kase it worked, but the truth is Kampf creates absolutely zero offence. You’d think Treliving knew this, but maybe he hoped for better.
Either way, the $5M fourth-line plan hasn’t worked. Not when they don’t produce any offence, and not when it takes so much away from the third line.
Kampf has been an absolute warrior for the franchise, and deserves his flowers for sure. But he’s not living up to his paycheck, and the Leafs can’t afford anyone lagging behind.
