Confirmed Signing with Link: [TOR] Leafs sign Alexei Barabanov (1 year, $925k)

[Shnooks]

Hey great, another speedy and gutless bottom six skill guy who can move up and down the lineup just like Kerfoot, Engvall, Malgin, Johnsson, Petan, Bracco, and every prospect we've drafted over the last couple years or signed as a free agent. Can't have too many of those when you're trying to tread water on the playoff bubble, that's for sure!

Honestly, what's the point of a free wallet when you have a garbage bag full of them already sitting there? Lets start signing players who can improve the team and make a difference instead of adding more apathetic skill to the bottom six. Unless this clown can throw a punch, a body check, or a temper tantrum after a poor team effort we don't need him.

I love how people act like this matters in today's NHL...it's 2020, not 1975.

You couldn't be more out of touch with reality than this.

 

[Neutral Hockey Fan]

I was wondering which lucky team would get the chance to sign him. Having watched him play numerous times, he’s a gritty forward that is an amazing skater, fantastic puck handler, solid defensively. He will be a top 6 forward for sure.

Dubas with yet another amazing move. Even as someone with no love for the leafs, one can’t help but admire what Dubas has managed to do after the mess he inherited from dinosaur Lou (who now, unsurprisingly, has started floundering on the island after an unsustainable first stretch). Hats off to Dubas and Co

 

[grapes55]

Putting a roster together is more than just saying our 3rd line winger makes 900k so he's a good fit for cap flexibility, the guys who play actually have to be better than their opponents on the ice. This guy is a 4th line scrub exactly the same as Malgin. Why we are signing yet another of these turds instead of saving that roster spot for a surprise veteran camp cut next year, or veteran ufa looking for one last run I'll never know.

If he's providing so much flexibility, I'd like to hear some proposals of who he plays with and what gets done with the alleged cap savings he'll provide. This should be good....

How are you gonna assume he's a 4th line scrub? Hell, from reading a couple of tweets it's clear he doesn't play anything like Malgin so how can you say they're the same.

2.4 million in cap savings gets you exactly zero players on your list. these alleged cap savings aren't even enough cash to get Hainsey back, and yet for that great savings you're risking that some never drafted KHL reject on the back half of his 20's is now all of a sudden going to be able to replace a hard working speed demon who puts up 40 points on a top line. Sure, it could happen and Sparks could be a number one goalie one day with enough support from the organization.

Barabanov and Johnsson are the same birth year. Literally his style of play is based around his speed and hard work lol I don't think you know what you're talking about

 

[Toronto makebeleifs]

Guy sounds like a soshnikov type of player. Which is fine. I liked sosh, too bad his body couldn't take the rigors of the nhl.