The NHL summer is officially on. The Leafs development camp is done, the players who elected arbitration (only Nick Robertson on the Leafs) will await their hearing dates and RFAs in general will gradually be signed.

The Leafs have two other RFAs they qualified and will get under contract: Dennis Hildeby and William Villeneuve.

The team may trade out some of the excess depth forwards – they don't have to, and they can wait until training camp or into the season for someone else's injury problem to become their opportunity.

The team may trade for some players, and there is some speculation that the Leafs are interested in Jack Roslovic – mildly effective offensively, very, very weak defensively, scratched in Carolina in the playoffs, and isn't this just David Kämpf crossed with Max Domi? I'm not thrilled at the idea, but maybe he's got hidden potential

PuckPedia currently lists 49 UFAs who played at least one NHL game last year, some of whom have retired, and Roslovic is in the top five in Points per 60 minutes. The fact Luke Kunin is ahead of him should take the shine off that ranking.

Roslovic, on what will be his fifth team (like I said, shaded of Domi) scored 22 goals twice. Once in 2021-2022 when Columbus mistakenly then signed him for three years at $4 million, leading to him travelling around to two other teams when he regressed to his mean. The second time was last year in Carolina where he was earning $2.8 million – a reasonable number.

He has played centre some of the time.

I used a proper multi-year comparison here. Just looking at his most recent year's points is how you end up paying him Kämpf money. Maybe he can do better offence on the Leafs. Maybe not. His history is varied. But if the goal is a different kind of depth player to Kämpf, well, I don't think this is the solution to the Leafs' biggest problems. But no one guy ever is.

The other thing going on is the process of ratifying the CBA and making it officially public. The Board of Governors was said to be doing that today. No word yet on when the players have their vote.

There are also 31 unsigned RFAs who played at least one NHL game last year. There are a host of AHL-level UFAs and RFAs, many of whom will sign non-NHL contracts for next season.

That is absolutely it for today, try to enjoy Monday.

From The Branches