Maple Leafs To Extend Troy Stecher

Even after signing Darren Raddysh a few days ago, the Toronto Maple Leafs opened up a hole on the right side of their blue line when they traded Brandon Carlo to the St. Louis Blues at the NHL Draft. It appears that Toronto will fill that hole with an internal option as Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports that the Maple Leafs are nearing an extension with defenseman Troy Stecher.

A few moments after Friedman’s report, Rick Dhaliwal of The Athletic shared that it’ll be a two-year, $2.7MM ($1.35MM AAV) contract for Stecher. It’s nearly double the salary ($787K) he was making on his two-year deal with the Edmonton Oilers, and subsequently the Maple Leafs.

Even with the new regime taking over in Toronto, Stecher’s extension isn’t a huge surprise. At the Maple Leafs’ end-of-season media availability with the players, Stecher was adamant that he would like to remain in Toronto for as long as he could.

The Maple Leafs acquired Stecher this past season as a waiver claim from the Oilers. Toronto was dealing with injuries at the time, and Stecher was a readily available veteran option who could eat minutes. Still, there wasn’t much hope he’d be anything more than a depth option, tallying zero points in six games with Edmonton while being a healthy scratch on most nights.

Toronto received significant value from Stecher. The 10-year veteran finished the season scoring three goals and 14 points in 58 games wearing the blue and white, averaging 19:46 of ice time per game. Additionally, there were numerous times down the stretch that Stecher flat-out outplayed Carlo, giving the Maple Leafs all the more reason to retain him rather than the latter.

Depending on how many more changes are coming to the Maple Leafs over the summer, it’s clear that they’re comfortable with Stecher playing consistently. Obviously, after last year’s injuries, Toronto can’t expect to have veteran Chris Tanev available on most nights. If that’s the case again this season, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Stecher playing alongside newly-acquired Emil Andrae on Toronto’s bottom-pairing.