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Toronto Maple Leafs and the 50 Contract Limit

By James Tanner

Mar 23, 2017; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Toronto Maple Leafs right wing Connor Brown (12) lines up before a face-off against the New Jersey Devils at Air Canada Centre. The Maple Leafs beat the Devils 3-2. Mandatory Credit: Tom Szczerbowski-USA TODAY Sports
Mar 23, 2017; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Toronto Maple Leafs right wing Connor Brown (12) lines up before a face-off against the New Jersey Devils at Air Canada Centre. The Maple Leafs beat the Devils 3-2. Mandatory Credit: Tom Szczerbowski-USA TODAY Sports /
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In the NHL, you are allowed to sign up to 50 players to ‘standard player contracts,’ and the Toronto Maple Leafs are currently maxed out.

Yesterday, the Toronto Maple Leafs signed Carl Grundstrom to an entry-level contract, however that won’t take effect until next season. According to capfriendly.com they are currently at 50.

This isn’t that big of a deal.  NHL contracts expire on June 30th, and the Toronto Maple Leafs have a bunch of players who will no longer be counting towards the limit.

This is a good thing because flexibility and the room to add players is a key component in building a team.

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The Leafs have several un-restricted free-agents who will not be re-signed, and several restricted free-agents who may not be qualified, thus creating room to sign more players.

Toronto Maple Leafs Expiring Contracts:

Un-restriced:

  • Brian Boyle
  • Ben Smith
  • Roman Polak
  • Matt Hunwick
  • Curtis McElhinney
  • Stephan Robidas
  • Brooks Laich
  • Milan Michalek
  • Colin Greening
  • Andrew Campbell
  • Steve Orleksy

Of these players, only Boyle, Polak, Hunwick and McElhinney even have a chance to be re-signed.  Of those four, It’d be hard to say who comes back and who doesn’t – I mean, how do you improve if not by replacing those guys?  But either way, that is a potentially 11 spots available for singing new players.

Restricted Free-Agents:

  • Zach Hyman
  • Connor Brown
  • Nikita Zaitsev
  • Sergei Kalinin
  • Justin Holl
  • Antoine Bibeau
  • Brendan Leipsic
  • Seth Griffith
  • Garret Sparks

I don’t pretend to know how the Leafs view their goaltending, and so I don’t even want to guess on the goalies.  I doubt they re-sign Kalinin, but he has played a season and a half in the NHL and may be useful, so it’s hard to say for sure.  Justin Holl is a late-bloomer and a right-handed defenseman, so  I think they will re-sign him. Everyone else will be re-signed for sure.

Signed for Next Year

Including Carl Grundstrom, the Leafs have signed a few players for next season who are not currently counting towards the 50 contract limit.  These are Grundy, Jeremy Bracco and Aaltonen.

To recap:

The Toronto Maple Leafs (pending future transactions) are at 50 player contracts until June 30th.  After that 11 players will become un-restricted free-agents.  Nine players will become restricted free-agents.  Three players new players are signed for next season.

This means that the Toronto Maple Leafs will be at 33 contracts starting July 1st 2017. (Assuming no transactions are made between now and then).  Of the 17 remaining, my best guess is that eight of the nine restricted free-agents will be re-signed.  (Sorry Sergei Kalinin).

So theoretically, before making any trades, theToronto Maple Leafs will have nine open contract spots to work with heading into the off-season.

All contract information from capfriendly.com

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