Toronto Maple Leafs: 1st Big Mistake of Shanahan Era

3. Salary and Salary Cap

The Toronto Maple Leafs might have a little cap lee-way, but value is value and spending badly still hurts.  It doesn’t matter if the Toronto Maple Leafs have one dollar or twenty-million available – overpaying hurts them and prevents them from improving their team.

Marleau’s salary for this season might not hurt too badly.  Once the winger log-jam is cleared up, and once the LTIR contracts have come off the books, the Leafs will still have room to sign some more players, even if this did rob them of much of their flexibility.

Then there is next year when William Nylander needs a new contract.  The year after, it’s new deals for Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner.  It’s at this point where the pure craziness of this deal will really shine through.

Patrick Marleau is simply not worth six million dollars and three years.  Those dollars and that term will haunt the team and eventually cost them a  player or two they’d rather not have lost.

This kind of short-sighted, bad contract is exactly what prompted the failure of the Burke and Nonis era.

There were better players available (Jagr) who were presumably cheaper (he’s still not signed), and that is what makes this contract more frustrating than anything else –  not one game of it has elapsed and it’s already proven to be a huge over-payment.

Spending money you can’t afford on things you don’t need is something a parent tries to teach their children about, so you’d think a 72 year old GM with 30+  years of NHL experience would know better.