Toronto Maple Leafs: Understanding the Cap Situation

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Patrick Marleau is a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Say it with me now, Marleau plays for the Toronto Maple Leafs, not for the San Jose Sharks.

That’s never going to not sound strange.

Let that sink in for a moment.

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At first, my mind was racing with negative thoughts regarding this acquisition because well, he signed for a lot of money and term, nearing the age of 38.

That’s pretty old for an NHL player, especially one that’s going to be playing for this Leafs team.

When the free agent floodgates opened on July 1, 2017, I don’t think anyone could have guessed that the Leafs would acquire three players all above 36 years old.

A quick recap of the three, Ron Hainsey (36), Dominic Moore (36) and Marleau (37).

The Leafs average age is now the 12th oldest overall in the NHL at 28.386 years old.

This leads me to the essence of what I’m writing about, yes, you’ve guessed it, the cap situation.

How can the Leafs afford all of this, you ask?

A full rundown is below.

Disclaimer

By the way, if I’m marginally off on anything, please forgive me.

Math is not my strong suit.

I hold a degree in Strategic Communication, not the NHL cap, so there’s a chance I could be wrong about numbers, but in the end, I’m just trying to help.

If something’s wrong, feel free to let me know and I’ll correct it.

Leafs Cap Situation

Let’s take a quick glance at CapFriendly, our go-to source for understanding any team’s cap situation.

The Leafs projected cap hit for the 2017-18 season is $76,679,167 and right now they’re projected cap space is -$1,679,167.

You’re probably thinking that’s bad.

Well, kind of, but it really doesn’t matter, so let me explain and some credit has to go to Steve Dangle for his enthusiastic video about the Marleau signing regarding the cap.

A reminder that teams can be over a certain percentage of cap space, too.

2017-18 Season Cap Adjustment

There are two Leafs players that are on long-term injured reserve (LTIR), Nathan Horton and Joffrey Lupul.

Horton’s cap hit of $5.3 million and Lupul’s cap hit of $5.25 million counts against the cap in the summer, the offseason, but not in the regular season or playoffs.

That’s $10.55 million added to the Leafs cap space when the season begins, so things are a little better.

We’re now looking at $66,129,167 for the 2017-18 season locked up, without Marleau’s cap added.

Don’t worry, I’ll add it below.

Connor Brown and Zach Hyman

The Leafs have two restricted free agents to resign this offseason, Connor Brown and Zach Hyman.

I wouldn’t expect either of them to earn a whole lot, but they will each earn a raise and should be happy with what they get.

I like them both, but they’ll need to just take whatever offer they’re given and run for their sake.

They are RFA’s after all.

Those Guys

Two smaller price tags to watch that will disappear at the end of the 2017-18 season are Tim Gleason’s buyout of $1,333,333 and Jared Cowen’s buyout of $750,000 for a grand total of $2,083,333.

That too will be off the books soon.

The Leafs are still on the hook for Phil Kessel’s salary retention of $1.2 million until the end of the 2021-22 season.

Don’t forget that.

Now let’s get to the really fun stuff.

Free as a Bird

As it stands right now, the Leafs have quite a few players that will most likely come off the books to start the 2018-19 season.

Joffrey Lupul ($5.25 million gone, forever gone)
James van Riemsdyk ($4.25 million gone)
Tyler Bozak ($4.2 million gone)
Leo Komarov ($2.95 million gone)
Eric Fehr ($2 million gone)
Dominic Moore ($1 million gone)
Ben Smith ($650,000 gone)
Alexey Marchenko ($1.45 million gone)
Martin Marincin ($1.25 million gone)

That’s $23 million off the books and yes, I skipped a few that will obviously get resigned, so that’ll be below.

I’m also assuming that all the above players will not be resigned and there’s just no way of telling what may happen with trades or anything else under the sun.

Naturally, I’m sticking clear of that and just writing about what exactly we know is coming off the books as of right now.

The Resigned Few

Here are the players who have contracts that will also expire the same as the ones above, but will definitely receive an extension.

William Nylander
Connor Carrick

Now, we obviously don’t know what either will receive in their next contract, so I’m just shying away from guessing and just sticking to the true numbers for now as previously mentioned.

The other player that may potentially be resigned is Josh Leivo, but we’ll just leave(o) that for now.

Leivo, leave(o), okay, moving on.

Nikita Soshnikov, I mean, no, I can’t see him cracking the roster.

Just a reminder, I’m only talking about roster players here, I realize there’s a lot of non-roster players to be decided upon.

Auston Matthews and Mitchell Marner

Remember all that money that’s going to come off the books?

Well, here’s why.

The Leafs will have two more hefty contracts to dish out after Nylander’s to Auston Matthews and Mitchell Marner, but that’s two years away.

And if you’re keeping up with the numbers, they’re promising so far.

No need to worry extensively.

Patrick Marleau

Geez, Andrew, haven’t we talked Marleau to death by now?

No, friend, not yet, not never.

Buddy over here just signed a pretty large deal at $6.25 million for the next three years as we all know, now the highest paid player on the team.

So we’re going to add that number to the projected cap space after factoring in the subtraction of the $10.55 million LTIR relief that will kick in at the beginning of the 2017-18 season.

The equates to $72,379,167, which is $4.3 million under the team’s projected cap hit for the upcoming season.

I told you I’d add his cap hit.

Explanation and Conclusion

Great, what does that exactly mean.

That means the Leafs have $4.3 million left over to resign both Brown and Hyman for next year unless they make some trades happen.

Leading us to the whole trading van Riemsdyk talk because there’s no way they can sign those two for under that amount collectively.

The Marleau trade won’t hurt the Leafs if they can free up just a few million in cap space for the upcoming season to resign Brown and Hyman and by no means will it jeopardize the long-term plan.

The being said, it’s all good, folks.

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I hope my numbers are right, if they aren’t, you know how to reach me, (905) ***-****.

Sorry, did I leave a few numbers out?

That’s right, I’m bad at the whole numbers thing, I remember now.

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