Toronto Maple Leafs: Exploring Kapanen’s Next Contract

Toronto Maple Leafs forward Kasperi Kapanen has finally cracked the lineup and is soon eligible for a new contract.

We all know that the Toronto Maple Leafs forwards William Nylander, Mitch Marner and Auston Matthews need new contracts. A forward that might be easily forgotten, mostly since he was hidden down with the Marlies, is Kasperi Kapanen. Like Marner and Matthews ELC, Kasperi Kapanen’s contract runs through the 2018 – 2019 season.

Most likely, the Toronto Maple Leafs will not re-sign Kapanen this summer. Logical would be to await his development and role on the team in the 2018 – 2019 season. After all, he is only an RFA after that season.

Nonetheless, it’s worth pondering what a new contract for Kapanen may look like.

Term and AVV

This is an interesting thing to think about. We all know M’N’M should be signed the maximum 8 years and not be signed a bridge-deal. But what about Kapanen? In my opinion, Kapanen is a great player but could be replaceable on the term. It wouldn’t surprise me if he get’s a bridge-deal running for 4/5 years against an affordable AVV. When the time comes that he’ll be looking for that (big) payday, it’ll be elsewhere.

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It’s not unthinkable either though, that he’s a big part of the Toronto Maple Leafs future. Just imagine, Matthews and Nylander being the first two centre’s. Having Marner and Kapanen playing on the wing on either on those lines would be lethal. Taking that into consideration, if Kapanen has a strong campaign in the 2018 – 2019 season, it might be worth the while to sign him long term.

It is hard to project his point production for next season, but I think Kapanen could be signed to a similar contract as James van Riemsdyk signed 6 years ago. A 6-year contract with a value of $27 million averaging $4.5 million per year.

Cap space

If Toronto would want to re-sign Kapanen, they’ll need the cap space to do so. According to our friends from Cap Friendly, Toronto has a projected cap space of $36,736,667 for the 2019 – 2020 season.

Not too shabby. Though, let me burst my own bubble by stating we should probably take $26 million from that projected cap space for the signing of Matthews, Nylander, and Marner. Still, that would leave over $10 million in cap space. It would leave enough room to sign Kapanen, but alas, there are more needs that need to be addressed by that time.

By the season of 2019 – 2020 the contracts of Ron Hainsey and Jake Gardiner will be expired. I think it is safe to say, Hainsey will not be resigned, more likely he’ll announce to retire after this contract. Jake Gardiner, however, is someone the Toronto Maple Leafs should try to resign. Something I’ll come back to in another article.

With the remaining cap space, Toronto will have needs on the blue-line to address and need to sign a new backup goaltender for Frederik Andersen. With all these needs to be addressed, Toronto’s management team won’t be bored when the 2019 – 2020 comes along.

Next: Dermott's Crazy Good Stats

Conclusion

Should Kasperi Kapanen earn a spot in the top-six next year, I think he can become a valuable asset to the teams future. He won’t walk away with a big contract such as Marner and Nylander will likely get, but he could be the teams next JVR in terms of the contract and eventually in trade deadline worth. To me, that’s a signing Toronto should make.

All stats from CapFriendly