The Maple Leafs announced they had signed David Kämpf to a 2-year contract on Wednesday afternoon.

Chris Johnston later added that this carried a $1.5M AAV.

Kämpf is 26 years old (turns 27 in January 2022). He has spent his entire NHL career in Chicago, where he signed an ELC in 2017. Prior to that, he plied his trade in his native Czech Republic, in the ExtraLiga.

Kämpf has played 235 NHL games, recording 17 goals and 41 assists in that time. From what I can tell, he has primarily played centre (or at least, is the main faceoff-taker on his lines). He is above average at faceoffs, with a career faceoff win percentage of 51%, which has been closer to 53% in the last two seasons.

In terms of usage, he has primarily been used in the middle to lower end of Chicago’s lineup, as well as spending some time on the PK. It is worth noting that his competition was about league average in 2020/2021, per HockeyViz, while his teammates were almost always depth players on Chicago. In that sense, he has been trusted to play against opponents with a higher relative standing on their team than his linemates have. Isolated threat paints his most recent season as slightly above average from a play driving perspective. His shift starts tilted towards the defensive end as well, while Chicago used him in defensively important situations more than offensively important ones (again, per HockeyViz). This pattern extends beyond just this past season.

His individual shot generation is mediocre, but is much better than his individual goal and point generation, which is poor. Kämpf has been a rather unspectacular shooter during his time in the NHL scoring his goals on 29.25 xG in his career. This under-generation was most pronounced last year, where he recorded just one goal on 6.45 xG (all xG stats from Natural Stat Trick).

It seems likely that Kämpf will be a depth center for the Leafs, either on a 3rd or 4th line that will have primarily defensive usage.

Welcome to Toronto, David!

Analysis