Toronto Maple Leafs Salary Cap Problems Next Years are Fictional

The Toronto Maple Leafs are in salary cap hell.

Next, season the Toronto Maple Leafs will face offer-sheets and lose good players.

The Toronto Maple Leafs screwed themselves when they signed William Nylander.

They can’t keep Tavares, Matthews, Nylander and Marner.

Etc. Etc. Etc.  And it never stops.

“Any of this sound familiar?” he asks, knowing full well that it does.

It’s all overhyped, fear-based garbagio made up to sell newspapers and get you to tune in to the TV/Radio.

The Toronto Maple Leafs face no salary cap pressure.

The Leafs Cap

The NHL is projecting an $83 million dollar salary cap next year.  And the Leafs won’t have a problem, despite constant notions to the contrary.  Why, you ask?  Because they know a secret that either no one else knows or refuses to talk about.   Here it is, I’ll tell it to you:

In a salary cap world, the optimal thing to do is sign as many elite players as you can and fill the rest of the roster out with minimum contracts.

This works for two reasons:

1. There is a bigger gap between elite players or near elite players and regular players (Matthews vs Hyman) than there is between regular players and replacement players (Hyman vs Jeremy Bracco).
2. The NHL significantly underpays players on entry-level contracts relative to their value.

(The following will over-estimate all unknown contracts in order to make my point).

Here’s how the Leafs look next year with just their elite players on the books:

Matthews: $12 million

Tavares: $11

Marner: $10

Nylander: $7

Marleau: $6.25

Kadri: $4.5

Kapanen: $4

Johnsson: $3

Rielly:  $5

Andersen : $5

Total: $68 million (roughly).

Roster Moves

That leaves $15 million dollars to get five forwards, six defenseman, and a back-up goalie.  (But the cap might be higher, and the payments to Matthews and Marner I estimated are almost certainly going to be lower).

If you figure the Leafs can ice: Gauthier, Moore, Grundstrom, Bracco and Ennis for under five million, and re-sign Sparks for one million, that gives them $9 million left to fill out their defense.

Rasmus Sandin, Calle Rosen and Travis Dermott won’t even combine to make $3 million.  Add in a league-minimum for the seventh D and you’re looking at $5 million for two defensemen.

Timothy Liljegren makes under a million.  So then they’ve got four million dollars to sign one defenseman, which should be easy.  (Or you use Andreas Borgman and have money to spend elsewhere).

There you go: full roster, under the cap, and it’s not going to be any worse for the loss of Brown, Hyman and Hainsey.

Now, obviously, I’m guessing on a lot of things, and this exercise assume no trades between now and than, but that doesn’t matter – we’re just doing this to make the point that the Toronto Maple Leafs cap problems are way overblown.

In this situation, the top-nine loses one forward, and the defense is arguably improved. If i’ve over-estimated the costs of Matthews and Marner, then signing Gardiner or trading for Parayko and keeping him would also be possible.

The main thing I hope I’ve illustrated here is that the Toronto Maple Leafs cap problems aren’t anywhere close to as bad as depicted.  They will retain their best players and continue to be something close to the best team in hockey.

Information from capfriendly.com