What the market will pay for the Leafs' expiring free agents is tough to gauge, but they're a win for the Leafs regardless.
For many years, we here at PPP called for the Leafs to identify undervalued UFAs and sign them to cheap, short-term deals. We reasoned that if the player rebounded, he would either be re-signed as a useful player or dealt for assets at the trade deadline. If the player failed to produce the results desired, the team wouldn't have wasted much in the way of money or long-term cap space, and in the meantime, would have sheltered prospects.