The Leafs announced today that they have signed restricted free agent Martin Marincin to a two-year deal.

The deal is for 2 years and $2.5 million, with an AAV of $1.25MM. Per Terry Koshan of the Toronto Sun, the deal in real salary is $1.2MM in 2016-17 and $1.3MM in 2017-18.

Marincin will be an RFA on expiry of this contract in 2018; he will be eligible for UFA status at the later of 2019 or the expiry of his next contract.

The Leafs were set to proceed to an arbitration hearing with Marincin next Tuesday, so they managed to get this signing in under the gun with just one business day remaining.

Marincin will enter his second season as a Maple Leaf after being acquired in a June 27, 2015 trade from the Edmonton Oilers for the Leafs' 2015 4th round draft pick (eventually swapped to Ottawa and used to select Christian Wolanin) and the rights to Brad Ross (who went to Europe anyway). TL;DR: LOL Oilers.

Marincin's boxcars are underwhelming- just 1 goal and 7 points in 65 games- but he makes up for it in strong defensive play. He was considered one of the better possession defensemen on the Leafs; of all defensemen to play 60+ games, he had the highest CF at 53.5%. He was paired later in the season with Morgan Rielly, and made an impact on his defensive play: Rielly's CF was 47.8% with Hunwick, compared to 50.1% with Marincin. He has some serious brain farts here and there that make him wear the goat horns, but overall is what he appears to be, which is a bona fide defensive defenseman.

This is the last of the RFAs that the Leafs needed to sign. Per General Fanager, the Leafs have just $55,916 remaining in cap space, and are likely to sign a backup goaltender. The Leafs are allowed a 10% overage of $7.3MM during the offseason until they can use LTIR for at least Nathan Horton's $5.3MM contract (and perhaps more), but a trade should not be ruled out entirely.