Carrick who was one of eight RFAs remaining on the team unsigned, now has a contract.

He is 24, and not quite the youth we think of him as, and he played only 47 games last year, with no playoff action. He played 67 games the year before. Lost in the shuffle of new signings Andreas Borgman, Calle Rosen, and the promotion of Travis Dermott, that situation hasn’t gotten much better this season with the addition of fellow-righty Igor Ozhiganov.

That amount is a: more than Martin Marincin made last year, b: much more than his qualifying offer of $892,500, and c: would seem to push the cost of Andreas Johnsson up quite a bit.

Matt Cane’s prediction model had an amount close to that, but for two years. For a one-year deal, the predicted amount was under $1 million.

It seems like a steep jump, and while he had arbitration rights, he had nothing to base an arbitration case on. He is an RFA at the end of this contract and has arbitration rights then.

Regardless of what you think of the player, if you’re paying him that much, you had better be at least intending to play him in more than half the games. He had four goals and eight assists for 12 points in his 47 games last year.  He played mostly third-pairing minutes and usage, but sometimes moved up the depth chart to take shifts with Jake Gardiner, as has been the case since he first joined the Leafs.

Free Agents and Contracts