In a world where Pius Suter is (or has) named his price it is worth reminding the NHL that the Maple Leafs have Pius Suter at home. Well…not quite Pius Suter, at Jarnkrok was maybe Suter a couple of years ago and Kampf is Pius Suter defensively, but the point remains with limited viable options in free agency, Calle Jarnkrok and David Kampf suddenly look like they have a bit more value.
The issue with both Jarnkrok and Kampf is that their price is still a little too high. Looking at Pontus Holmberg, Isac Lundestrom, Nick Bjugstad, Lars Eller, and Conor Dewar’s deals, all of them were still comfortably below $2M AAV and none of them exceed Kampf’s term. Of course, they are all now signed and the picking is slimmer, but that might not drive anyone into the arms of the Maple Leafs looking to trade for a bottom six player.
What will do that?
With Jarnkrok, the sales pitch is easy. He’s in the last year of his deal, looked good on Laughton’s wing in the playoffs and looks healed from his nearly season long injury. He’s worth a gamble. He also has a base salary of $775k now that the signing bonus has been paid out and for teams looking to get to the cap floor without necessarily spending to get the cap floor, Jarnkrok is smart addition.
The problem here is that teams looking to get to the cap floor are also the teams that won’t be in contention in 2025-26 and Jarnkrok’s 10-team no trade list is enough to keep him from being dumped on a bad Sharks team unless he chooses it. The key is finding a team in the bubble team range that also won’t be spending close to the salary cap and seeing if they want Jarnkrok. Seems easy enough but also worth considering that until the Leafs demonstrate that they need to cap space, there might be reason enough to keep Jarnkrok in Toronto as well.
David Kampf is a different beast and while his contract doesn’t have a huge number attached to it, the deal is one of the most hilarious blunders Treliving made in his early days with the Leafs.
Kampf’s $2.4M AAV cap hit for two more seasons is already a bit of a burden. That’s before factoring the 10 team no trade list that still applies this season and that he too receives an annual $1.325M signing bonus.
That signing bonus for 2025-26 has now been paid, so in actual money owed to Kampf it is closer to $3.5M over the next two seasons and that puts him in Nick Bjugstad cost territory. He also has been highly regarded as a penalty killer and the Leafs would be wise to cash out on that reputation before he plays shorthanded without Mitch Marner.
The Leafs also have the additional challenge of his reputation down the stretch. Kampf was scratched late in the season and throughout the majority of the playoffs. Optically that isn’t great even if was largely due to the return of Jarnkrok and the addition of Scott Laughton. Kampf didn’t beat out Holmberg on the lineup card and Holmberg is now viewed as a $1.5M player and is on the right side of 30. If the Maple Leafs want to get rid of Kampf, it is far more likely they will be packaging him as a salary dump in a larger deal or retaining a portion of his salary to make things work.
Toronto already has the option of demoting Kampf to the Marlies to free up an additional $1.15M of cap space as well, so when looking at what they retain it would certainly be less than the $1.25M that would either stay on the books ($1.2M is the max the Leafs can retain anyway, since it’s 50% of his AAV), but Kampf at a sub-$2M cap hit might suddenly spark some interest. There is at least one coach in New Jersey that would probably enjoy working with Kampf again.
At the moment, the Leafs don’t need the cap space and from an organizational depth perspective, there are worse things than keeping Jarnkrok and Kampf around for another year. Neither might fit the desired direction of the Maple Leafs, but both can slot into the bottom part of the lineup and deliver serviceable if forgettable performances.