Toronto Maple Leafs: Patrick Marleau Is the New Brooks Orpik

Can the Toronto Maple Leafs reduce Patrick Marleau’s cap hit this summer?

Patrick Marleau signed a three year contract with the Toronto Maple Leafs that doesn’t end until after next season. With Marner, Matthews, Kapanen, Johnson and Gardiner all needing to be signed next summer, his $6 million dollar cap hit is problematic.

In case you missed what happened last season, on June 23rd the Washington Capitals traded Brooks Orpik to the Colorado Avalanche along with Philipp Grubauer for a Second Round draft pick. Orpik was bought out of his last year at $5.5M shortly afterwards.

A few weeks after Free Agency started, Orpik signed with his old team (Washington Capitals) for $1M.   Kyle Dubas has a similar situation where a veteran is making too much money relative to what he produces, and may want to try a similar move.

Patrick Marleau

The debate that has been floating around the Toronto Maple Leafs is that after signing John Tavares to a cap-hit of $11 million, there will not be enough room to sign the young guns. As Leafs fans finally found out, William Nylander signed on December 1 for an AAV just shy of $7M, which along with everyone else on the team, leaves Dubas with $23,224,301 (projected) to sign Matthews and Marner along with replacements any holes other Free Agents may leave.

One player who’s cap hit may be a little higher than his production is Patrick Marleau. He has one more year after this at $6.5M and that might make next year’s cap situation a little difficult for Dubas.

So what if Kyle Dubas was to pull off a situation similar to what Washington’s Brian MacLellan did with Orpik? Trade Marleau to a team with an excess of cap space along with another player for a draft pick and then re-signs him shortly after for a significantly lower amount.

Marleau gets the $6.5M plus whatever he signs for. Dubas gets the cap space we presume he needs. Maple Leafs fans get a ideally better team to cheer for, and the team that buys out Marleau gets a significant asset for their trouble.  One problem with this plan is that Patrick Marleau has a No Movement Clause, which means any deal that Kyle Dubas might have on the table would need Marleau to approve. Once Dubas gets the okay from Marleau, this theoretical deal could come to fruition.

There is also the issue that the NHL apparently banned Orpik from discussing his sketchy off-season trade and re-signing, and that other teams complained as well.  The NHL is very sensitive about cap circumvention and this is an issue almost certain to come up in the next collective bargaining negotiations.  For now, however, it does appear to be a legal move.

This move may be unlikely to occur, but if it’s within the NHL rules, the Toronto Maple Leafs would be wise to explore it.  They are due for some salary cap related problems and this would go a long way towards solving them.