On Wednesday I went through some of the free agents the Maple Leafs could target at centre this offseason. Today’s piece is going to focus on some of the more cost-efficient options.



I want to start off by saying that teams should always look to take advantage of an inefficient trade market. If a top-nine centre is available for pennies on the dollar, the Leafs should absolutely pursue it. With that being said, I don’t want to waste time analyzing hypothetical trades that are completely one-sided (ie. rumours about Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Sam Bennett, or “everyone in Carolina except Aho“) so we’ll leave those names for another day.



When it comes to addressing the centre position in a cost-efficient manner, let’s pick up where we left off Wednesday — unrestricted free agency.



The low-end UFAs – Riley Nash and Derek Ryan



Argument for Nash/Ryan



The big fish in free agency always get the most...