Simon Benoit arguably has been the most pleasant surprise of the Toronto Maple Leafs’ season.
And now, he has been rewarded with a three-year extension, announced on Friday.
Benoit’s cap hit for his age 26, 27 and 28 seasons will be $1.35 million – nearly double the $775,000 he’s pulling in this season.
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It’s quite a reward for someone who wasn’t in the Leafs’ opening-night lineup after a shaky training camp and who even briefly spent time with the Toronto Marlies last fall.
Benoit didn’t make his season debut until Nov. 6, in the Leafs’ 12th game of the season.
He gradually made an impression on the Leafs’ coaching staff by keeping his game simple and by working hard, day after day, with assistant coach Mike van Ryn on his puck play. Eventually, Benoit hooked up with Jake McCabe on a pairing that arguably has been the Leafs’ most stable all season.
Despite the two of them getting buried, with an offensive-zone percentage of just 31 percent, the Leafs have won more than 54 percent of the expected goals in their 426 five-on-five minutes together.
The Leafs haven’t given up much when Benoit has been on the ice, just 2.3 expected goals per 60 minutes. Benoit isn’t seeing top lines every night, obviously, but the suppression has been impressive nonetheless for a guy who struggled in Anaheim last season.
Benoit’s underlying numbers don’t suffer too much without McCabe, either. He’s also had a regular role on the penalty kill this season.
The Leafs now have Benoit, Morgan Rielly, Jake McCabe and Conor Timmins under contract next season, with a new deal still to be worked out for pending RFA Timothy Liljegren.
Benoit will presumably slot in as a third-pairing guy next season, though his fit with McCabe gives the Leafs some maneuverability with an impactful top-four defender still needed.
The Leafs took a chance on Benoit with a one-year deal last summer, a deal that has delivered meaningful value this season. In Benoit, the Leafs saw someone with good defensive instincts, despite the apparent struggles with the Ducks. They like his length and size (6-foot-3 and more than 200 pounds), his physicality, his skating and how sound he’s been positionally. He has the kind of toolbox that appeals to GM Brad Treliving. Crucially, the Leafs believe Benoit, who won’t turn 26 until September, still has room to grow. The front office has been impressed by the strides he’s taken this season
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Friendly and outgoing, Benoit has also been a likable personality inside the dressing room.
He was due to become a restricted free agent this summer.
Even if he is only a third-pairing guy, which seems likely, the Leafs are paying a price that suits that slotting, especially as the cap continues to rise.
Three years is a lengthy commitment, but the downside is still low for the Leafs. They can bury most of his deal in the minors if things don’t work out. Benoit’s upward trajectory is also encouraging, given his age.
There are still some question marks.
In the initial aftermath of the March 8 trade deadline, after the Leafs acquired Ilya Lyubushkin and Joel Edmundson, Benoit was the clear No. 7 — and briefly fell out of the lineup entirely.
He has limitations, especially in struggling to move pucks cleanly to the forwards. It remains to be seen whether those limitations will inhibit his ability to stay on the ice in the playoffs, when the speed and physicality ramps up considerably.
Will he even play in the playoffs?
If the Leafs are healthy, it’s conceivable, if not likely, that Benoit could fall down to seventh on the depth chart again, behind Rielly, McCabe, Edmundson, Lyubushkin, TJ Brodie and Liljegren. In other words, he could be a scratch in Game 1.
This deal is about the future, though. And it’s not all that hard to see a world in which Benoit continues to do similar things (defend hard), playing a similar role (approximately 17 minutes a night) next season and beyond for the Leafs.
(Stats and research courtesy of Natural Stat Trick, Hockey Reference, and Evolving Hockey)
(Photo of Simon Benoit: Kevin Sousa / NHLI via Getty Images)
