Toronto Maple Leafs: the Aftermath of the Jake Muzzin Trade

The Toronto Maple Leafs acquired Jake Muzzin from the L.A Kings on Monday night.

With the addition of another high quality defenseman, the Toronto Maple Leafs have now put together something resembling the best roster in the Salary Cap era.

They have three centres capable of centering a top line. They have two high-end wingers, two potentially high-end wingers, one of the best goalies alive, and now, three top pairing defensemen.

It is truly an incredible collection of players, and it’s made possible by the fact that Andersen, Rielly, Kadri and Gardiner are on such team-friendly contracts, while Mitch Marner and Auston  Matthews on entry-level deals.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are an incredible team on paper, and it will be amazing to see what they do the rest of the way.

But, rather than just revel in the glory of our favorite team’s latest acquisition, let’s talk about the consequences of the trade.

The Aftermath

According to capfriendly.com  the Leafs $4 million in projected cap space remaining.  This isn’t great news, however, because they have $5.4 in potential bonuses.  They can carry over the bonuses to next season, but with six RFAs and Four UFAs they may be in cap trouble then, already.

As far as I can tell, Nathan Horton’s salary ($5.3) is still counting against the current cap.  If the Leafs were to spend to the cap, they’d be eligible to receive some cap relief for his salary. Therefore, it’s possible that the Leafs could push the Marner/Matthews potential bonuses to next season, and have up to $11 million to spend, which is what Cap Friendly lists as their “current cap space.”

Cap Friendly explains it here, and if I was a lawyer I might be able to fully grasp what is what.  Either way, the Leafs have between $0 and $11 million to potentially add to their current roster.

The Toronto maple Leafs are not at 46/50 standard player contracts, and they now have a defense that consists of five left handed shots.  This is why I still think they may move to acquire Radko Gudas or Nick Jensen, neither of whom will cost anything near what Muzzin did, and both of whom are upgrades on Zaitsev/Hainsey.

Pundits keep talking about adding GRIT to the team up-front, but of the Leafs top-six wingers (Marner, Nyander, Hyman, Johnsson, Kapanen, Marleau) who is going to get replaced?

How much grittier can anyone be than Hyman?  Given Marleau’s stature as a Hall of Famer, Father Figure and six million dollar man, I don’t see how he can be moved or demoted to fourth line duties, so unless the team wants to give up a young, fast, untapped potential player like Kapanen or Johnsson in order to get stronger, I don’t see it happening.

If the Toronto Maple Leafs are going to add more players, I expect them to be defenseman.

Although, one outside-the-box move they could make is to make Marleau the #4 centre, and replace him on Kadri’s wing with someone a bit better.  I think Marleau could outperform Gauthier and make a pretty good line with Brown and Ennis, but who knows if they’d even consider such a thing.

I guess I could see Andreas Johnsson being part of a package if the Leafs really moved on a bigger name winger.

Either way, it’s gonna be fun to see what happens.