friedman talks a lot of shit. He hasn’t given us any reason to believe half of it. Mikheyev is a good player, but hardly replaceable at his salary. Seems doubtful they’d outright refuse to move him if he said he wanted out
I doubt Mikheyev wanted to go into detail about why he wants to leave. He had good reason to cover it up.
I see less reason for Friedman to target Mikheyev over multiple seasons over his dislike of how he's been handled in Toronto.
I think Mikheyev originally wanted a Kapanen/Johnsson/Kerfoot contract because he outplayed them and there was already precedent set. But, he didn't have a big enough sample size and he was coming off a serious injury, so they squeezed him down to a much cheaper deal to offset cap issues. Which is fair, but not in the eyes of Mikheyev it appears. So, he signed, he only had so many rights, but held a grudge. Then, he struggled to score because of his wrist injury and wasn't given PP time, he was turned into a defensive zone, PK player without good offensive options. He ended up with low scoring totals and if he were to do it again this year instead of say 45 points in a different situation, he would be missing out on millions in his prime. After in his mind thinking he was squeezed on his original deal.
I think the Leafs value his D/PK game, speed, contract and he still could bring his game back up to his first year level. I think they're trying to compete and don't really care if he comes back next year. They like his blanket like effect on the defensive side of the game and are planning to use him as an own rental over gaining draft capital.
