The Toronto Maple Leafs have finally got young Swedish defenceman Rasmus Sandin to put pen to paper and sign a two year contract extension worth around $2.8 million ($1.4 million AAV) as the regular season is set to kickoff on October 12th, as the Leafs take on the Canadians.
Sandin has 28 points split across three seasons with the Leafs where he has suited up in 88 NHL games, the defenceman had quickly become one of the Leafs shining prospects since being taken 28th overall in the 2018 NHL entry draft.
Injuries derailed his 2021/22 season as he was looking to maintain a spot in the lineup heading into this season and some pretty good play down the stretch last year was assuring Leaf fans that he can develop into a great two-way defenceman.
Suffering a knee injury against Nashville in March, Sandin missed the following 20 games before being reactivated off LTIR in time for the Leafs first round playoff loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Over the past few seasons there has been a bit of a logjam at the back for the Leafs defence, especially on the left side. With Marlies teammate Timothy Liljegren on the shelf for at least six weeks recovering from a sports hernia surgery, and the injuries sustained to Jordie Benn and Carl Dahlstrom in Wednesday night’s preseason game against the Habs, there will be plenty of opportunity for Sandin to officially cement his place in the Leafs lineup this season.
His contract extension is an identical deal to what Liljegren signed back in June as the pair were offered identical deals, but the younger Swede declined his deal in hopes to squeeze a little more juice out of the Maple Leaf tree.
Stalemate between the Sandin camp and the Leafs front office lasted for most of the summer, with talks only picking up recently and with plenty of injuries to the Leafs lineup, and in particular, their defence the move makes the most sense for the Leafs to get done now before dragging it into the regular season.
Sandin is represented by agent Lewis Gross, who also represents another Maple Leaf Swedish phenom in William Nylander. When Nylander’s contract had expired the two parties were at a standstill to try and get a new contract in place, but the standstill lasted much longer than anyone would’ve liked as Nylander inked his deal in six year deal which came down to a December 1st deadline, as he missed a good portion of the 2018/19 season.
Thankfully both parties agreed to a deal which wouldn’t see the player miss any game action as now Sandin heads back to Toronto to get his conditioning in before suiting up for potentially 1-2 preseason games.
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