James van Riemsdyk looked around at his Philadelphia Flyers teammates sitting nearby in a visitor’s dressing room, smiled and cracked a few jokes. Despite all the eyeballs that have narrowed in on the Flyers for negative reasons as of late, van Riemsdyk is a fan of what the Flyers are building under head coach John Tortorella.
“Of the five years I’ve been back, this (year) has probably been the most enjoyable. (Tortorella) brought some life into some things, and straightened some things out, to be quite frank, and it’s been fun to be a part of that,” he said. “These are all things you have to think about as the season moves forward.”
As the final season of his five-year, $35-million contract begins to wind down, van Riemsdyk will have plenty to think about ahead of the March 3 trade deadline.
“I’m not naive to the fact that things can happen given my situation and contract status,” van Riemsdyk said last week.
The Athletic‘s Michael Russo reported the veteran could be had for a mid-to-late round draft pick. Hypothetically, could that mean a return to the city where the 33-year-old played almost half of his 14-year career?
“You never know, I guess, right?” van Riemsdyk said with a smile of a hypothetical return to Toronto.
The left winger didn’t make Jonas Siegel’s original Maple Leafs forwards trade board, but at least on paper, he fits some of the team’s needs as a buy-low, top-nine left winger who can provide secondary scoring. Bo Horvat being moved to the New York Islanders a full month before the deadline takes one forward off the board for the Leafs, and is a reminder that they’ll be competing against plenty of other teams to land a big-ticket forward. If they can’t get that type of forward, perhaps this is where van Riemsdyk becomes an option to consider.
Because of Jake Muzzin and Nick Robertson being on LTIR, the Leafs could have between $3 and $4 million in cap space to play with at the deadline, as it stands.
If the Flyers would be willing to retain 50 percent of van Riemsdyk’s $7 million cap hit and a third team would eat another 25 percent for a late draft pick to make the deal feasible for the Maple Leafs’ salary cap situation, does a reunion with van Riemsdyk in Toronto make sense as something of a last resort? Is he an upgrade on what the Leafs have on the left wing right now?
The most likely scenario for a plausible reunion involves Kyle Dubas not wanting to part with any top prospects or his first-round pick after having just one first-rounder in the last four drafts. Perhaps Dubas prioritizes going in for a defenseman instead of a forward — adding a player for a cheaper cost like van Riemsdyk then becomes an option.
Of course, in a year in which the Leafs’ window to win a Stanley Cup is wide open, a first-round pick that’s likely to fall in the mid-to-late 20s should be expendable.
One vote in favor of acquiring van Riemsdyk is the familiarity factor. Deadline deals can go awry because of how long a player takes to become comfortable in his new surroundings. There’s more to a late-season trade for a player than just stepping onto the ice in a new arena. There’s meeting new faces behind the scenes and developing trust with the people who will help you do your job. There’s learning your way around a city that many players have only seen from a hotel room window.
And the quicker that happens, the quicker the players can (hopefully) do their job at the highest level.
With van Riemsdyk, it’s safe to assume that after his six seasons in Toronto, he’d be able to adapt, and then start contributing, sooner rather than later.
Van Riemsdyk was well liked by Leafs staff, commended for his professionalism and as recently as this summer, spent time on vacation in Italy with current Leafs Mitch Marner and Justin Holl.
“My experience there was great,” he said of playing in Toronto. “I really enjoyed my years playing there. I maintain some good relationships with some guys on the team.”
Even then, his pricey ticket might limit where the Leafs could add elsewhere in the lineup.
“There’s a business side of things, and how the numbers work,” admitted van Riemsdyk when discussing the Leafs.
When asked what he wants from his NHL career as he approaches 1,000 games (and the longest playoff run he’s ever been a part of came in his rookie season of 2009-10 when the Flyers lost in six games in the Stanley Cup Final to the Blackhawks ) van Riemsdyk was resolute.
“I want to win. I want to be at a place where you’ve got a chance to win,” he said. “I’ve put a lot of time into being the best player I can be.”
One piece of the puzzle still to fall into place for van Riemsdyk is what direction the Flyers will go in.
“I don’t know where the team’s head is as far as what they’re thinking going into (the deadline). Obviously, some of that depends on how we’re doing as a team,” he admits.
Sitting six points out of the playoffs and with Dom Luszczyszyn giving the Flyers less than a one percent chance at making the playoffs, you can practically hear the big hand on the doomsday clock ticking toward the inevitable: a van Riemsdyk trade. He has earned the right to make a deep postseason run.
And the Maple Leafs appear to have built as strong a lineup for a postseason run as they have in recent memory.
We’ve seen what van Riemsdyk can contribute. He had 24 goals last season and eight goals in 31 games this season after missing 20 games with a broken finger. He also had 36 goals in his final season in Toronto in 2017-18 before joining the Flyers as a free agent.
Could he recreate some of that magic five years later as something of a plug-and-play option?
Theoretically, it makes some sense to pair a natural shooter like van Riemsdyk with a creative winger like William Nylander, but whether it makes just as much sense to add him to a line with John Tavares, a player who can also make hay around the blue paint, is another question altogether.
He might not be as effective on the power play as he used to be, but it’s worth wondering if he’d still give the Leafs’ second unit a jolt with his net-front presence.
Other questions:
- Would van Riemsdyk be able to keep up with the Leafs’ improved team defensive structure?
- And is he therefore an improvement on, say, Calle Järnkrok in that second-line left-wing role?
He’s one of just three Flyers forwards in the positive five-on-five expected goals department. Although defensive play isn’t known as being part of his repertoire, Tortorella, a coach who holds his players to high standards defensively, doesn’t call out the veteran forward.
Like almost any left winger the Leafs would likely go after, acquiring van Riemsdyk would allow Sheldon Keefe to move Järnkrok to a defensively-minded third line, which might be the best use of his skill set.
All in all, the most pertinent question will be how the Leafs, or any team, will make the numbers work that will determine where a player with goal-scoring pedigree like van Riemsdyk, even with the low cost of acquisition, ends up after March. 3.
“I guess we’ll see how things shake out here as things go on,” he said.
(Data via Natural Stat Trick)
(Photo: Tim Nwachukwu/Getty Images)
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