Toronto Maple Leafs sign David Kampf to four-year contract

The Toronto Maple Leafs have signed center David Kampf to a four-year contract worth $9.6 million. The deal carries an AAV of $2.4 million and will keep Kampf in Toronto until he’s 33 years old.

Kampf is a bottom-six center who scored seven goals and 27 points for the Maple Leafs last season. He doesn’t provide much offence but his job is to kill penalties and play solid defensive hockey. He joined the Maple Leafs for the 2021-22 season, after being signed in free agency to a two-year, $1.5 million AAV contract. In the last two seasons has played 164 out of a possible 164 regular season games and played in all 18 of the Maple Leafs’ playoff games. Alexander Kerfoot is the only other Maple Leaf who accomplished that feat.

Kampf was an undrafted European free agent who was signed by the Chicago Blackhawks for the 2017-18 season out of Chomutov Pirati of the Czech league. He started with a 18 points in 33 AHL games for the Rockford IceHogs, before being called up to the NHL. He scored 11 points in 46 games as an NHL rookie, and has never been sent down to the minors since his rookie season.

He ended up playing 235 games for the Blackhawks, scoring 17 goals and 58 points in that span. These last two seasons in Toronto have been the most productive of his six-season NHL career. He reached double digits in goals during the 2021-22 season and scored a combined 53 points in Toronto.

The analytics community think the contract is an overpay and as is shown here, Kampf is an extremely talented penalty killer and doesn’t take many penalties but does basically nothing else. He has played 399 games in his career with 35 goals and 111 points along with a -11 rating and 82 penalty minutes.