#4 Salary Cap
The Toronto Maple Leafs have amazing players like Nazem Kadri and Jake Gardiner locked up for years on extremely team-friendly deals.
They have a core of players – JVR, Bozak, Komarov, Kadri, Rielly, Gardiner – who are in their prime and on good-value contracts. And they have two years after this one where the majority of their best players are on entry-level contracts. This means they have a team that can already go toe-to-toe with the Washington Capitals and nearly 20 million in cap space to improve their team over the next two seasons.
If there is a team that has every manipulated the salary cap to such an extensively genius level, I am unaware of them.
The Oilers, on the other hand, have made a series of bad signings and have only one more year to win while Connor McDavid is on his entry-level deal. After that, the Caps is going to get a little dicey, giving the Leafs another advantage.