The Toronto Maple had one hell of a regular season and were then eliminated in the first round of the playoffs, as has become tradition. The Leafs took Tampa Bay to 7 games and according to Sheldon Keefe received, "a lot of respect in the handshake line." Unfortunately for Keefe, respect in the line doesn't win series.
However like a lot of the loaded teams in the NHL, the Maple Leafs are having salary cap issues. That means Maple Leafs' General Manager, Kyle Dubas has some tough decisions to make this off-season. One of those decisions being the future of Ilya Mikheyev.
It seems extremely unlikely that the Maple Leafs will be able to re-sign Mikheyev, who brought some secondary scoring for the Leafs this past season. Mikheyev scored 21 goals and 11 assists in 53 games. The 27-year-old had a bargain contract that paid him just $1,645,000 million dollars annually.
If Kyle Dubas is hoping to re-sign Mikheyev it's going to have to be another bargain contract. However, that's seems to be unlikely as TSN Hockey Insider, Pierre Lebrun revealed Mikheyev's asking price and it's a lot more than you'd expect.
According to Lebrun, not only is Mikheyev seeking a massive increase in salary, somewhere in the range of $4.75 million to $5.5 million per season. That's not all Mikheyev's agent Dan Milstein wants, he is seeking a long term contract as well for his client.
