Toronto Maple Leafs: Salary Cap Management in the Modern Era

The Toronto Maple Leafs are in a tremendous position to compete for Stanley Cups for the foreseeable future, but sustained success will depend on the organization’s ability to manage the salary cap effectively.

In the current landscape of the NHL, the salary cap has added another layer of complexity to player management. The teams that have set themselves up for success serve as revealing examples for how the Toronto Maple Leafs will need to manage their assets.

One thing that has become clear is that quality drafting and development minimizes cap hits for years into the future. For example, the Nashville Predators are currently paying their incredible defensive group only $22.5M, which ranks 17^th out of 31 NHL teams.

In fact, Nashville’s former draft picks Roman Josi, Mattias Ekholm, and Ryan Ellis only earned a combined $10.25M/year (an average of around $3.4M each). An important note is that all of these players were drafted in 2009 or earlier, showing how cap relief from solid drafting and development can extend far beyond the entry-level contract years. This type of management allowed Nashville to slot in P.K Subban at a $9.5M cap hit, forming arguably the best defensive corps in the league.

Another lesson to take from successful salary cap era teams is that they maintain a constant influx of young players playing on entry-level contracts. In this way, the salary cap era makes frequent roster turnover necessary for success.

For example, the Pittsburgh Penguins have some of the greatest veteran talent in the NHL between Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Phil Kessel, and Kris Letang. But could the Penguins have won back-to-back Stanley cups, or continued to advance deep in the playoffs, without the contributions of Jake Guentzel (23 goals and 42 points in 37 playoff games) and Matt Murray (.923 sv% and 2.08 GAA in 44 playoff games)? Likely not.

Considering that Murray and Guentzel have used only $5.7M in cap space combined in their entire careers, you would be hard-pressed to find a better return on investment in NHL history.

However, last year’s Winnipeg Jets would give some tough competition, as the Jets supplemented their core group with 6 players on entry-level contracts who contributed a staggering 126 goals and 263 points at a cost of under $10M including bonuses.

Toronto Maple Leafs

This is the recipe for success in the modern NHL and it is why the outdated mentality of trading youth and draft picks has turned heralded general managers of years past, such as Brian Burke and Peter Chiarelli, into cautionary tales for the current generation of NHL executives.

Applying these models to the situation the Toronto Maple Leafs find themselves in, it would seem ill-advised to move many of the young players that have been mentioned in trade speculation, such as William Nylander, Timothy Liljegren, and Garret Sparks. Kyle Dubas and company seem content to be patient, which should be positive for the team’s progress moving forward.

The Leafs have also done a fantastic job of drafting young players, including Connor Brown, Andreas Johnsson, Travis Dermott, Josh Leivo, and Garret Sparks, outside of the first round.  This trend will need to continue to supplement the current core with young talent.

The fact that the Leafs have learned to value young, cheap, and controllable international free agents (Calle Rosen, Andreas Borgman, Igor Ozhiganov, Par Lindholm and Nikita Zaitsev to name a few), also shows that Leafs management appears to be demonstrating the foresight and patience to combat the salary cap challenges that they will face in years to come. That is a great sign in an era where dynasties can fall just as quickly as they rise.

*All stats courtesy of capfriendly.com and hockeydb.com*