The Toronto Maple Leafs went through the opening days of free agency not adding a player who could make up for the departure of Mitch Marner. GM Brad Treliving made a move to acquire playmaking winger Matias Maccelli from Utah, but has admitted in interviews that he is likely looking to replace Marner in the aggregate, having two or three players making up for his offense.
The Leafs may be willing to start the season giving rookie Easton Cowan or the more experienced Max Domi or Nick Robertson a chance at a top-six role, but if Treliving does not feel that either are capable of playing higher in the lineup, then an answer to their dilemma will either come from the few options left in free agency or in the trade market. Over the next few weeks, we will look at a few players who might be fits for one reason or another for Toronto.
Victor Olofsson
Other than Jack Roslovic, the best option for a top-six scoring winger in free agency is Olofsson, a 29-year-old Swede who has played both on the left and right side in his seven-year NHL career, most of which has been playing in the Atlantic Division with the Buffalo Sabres.
Olofsson was a seventh-round pick of the Sabres in 2014 and spent four years in Sweden before coming to North America in 2018 and can do one thing better than anyone still available in free agency, and that is putting the puck in the net.
After scoring 30 goals in AHL Rochester in 2019, the winger scored 20 goals as a rookie in the COVID-shortened 2019-20 season, 13 goals in the 56-game 2020-21 campaign (averaging out to 19 in a full year), 20 goals in 2022 and a career-high 28 in 2023, when Buffalo came within a point of making the playoffs.
The decline to seven goals in 51 games in the last year with Buffalo was due more to a demotion to a fourth-line role by head coach Don Granato, then an inability to score. After signing a one-year deal with former teammate Jack Eichel in Vegas, Olofsson bounced back with an injury-shortened 15 goals in 56 games (which again would average over 20 in a full year), playing at times with new Leaf Nicolas Roy.
It is unlikely that Olofsson would cost much more than the $1.075 million he signed with Vegas for, a salary that would be much less than what Roslovic is expected to get.
