Could Another Kessel Trade Help the Toronto Maple Leafs Cap Situation?

There are rumours going around that the Toronto Maple Leafs will be in a lot of salary cap trouble next season.

Many people do not believe that the Toronto Maple Leafs will have enough cap space to resign their players for next season.

Like the threat of offer sheets, this has been vastly overblown in the media.

I played around on CapFriendly’s Armchair GM for a bit and after looking at how players have performed and their expected value, I have worked up a roster that would be cap compliant.

In the above tweet, you will see that the Leafs would have just over $100,000 in cap space after the signings that I gave them. Not to mention, that it includes Nikita Zaitsev staying with the Leafs, meaning they would still have $4.5M in cap space that they could move if they really needed to.

Signings & Trades

The first player I signed was Mitch Marner and he had an AAV of $9M, which is more or less around the ballpark that he should be paid.

I also signed Kasperi Kapanen and Andreas Johnsson to bridge deals, earning $3M and $2.25M respectively. (Though perhaps that is a bit low given his performance this year).

Tyler Ennis was re-signed to a $1M contract, but that could be less and it does not need to be Ennis, Jeremy Bracco might be able to make the jump next season and he is making $842,500 next season.

Andrej Sustr was added as the bottom pairing defenceman with Rasmus Sandin, making $1.2M and $925,000 respectively. Again, the Toronto Maple Leafs could go with a cheaper option than Sustr if needed, he is just a place holder to show how the Leafs could fit under the cap.

You will also see that I traded Connor Brown and Nathan Horton to the Arizona Coyotes for a fourth in 2020.

In order to take on the Horton contract, the Coyotes would get Brown for almost nothing.  This would allow the Leafs some cap freedom, should they need to pay bonuses on any entry-level Contracts.

Phil Kessel

Now this is the interesting part for me. I have heard in the past that the Leafs would not be allowed to get rid of the salary retention they have on Phil Kessel’s contract, but after reading the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) myself, I do not see any reason why they would not be allowed to do so.

If this is true, the Leafs could make a three-way trade in order to create a loophole in the CBA and by doing so, they would have an extra $1.2M in cap space.

What I believe Toronto could do in the summer is make a trade with the Pittsburgh Penguins and the New York Rangers in order to acquire Phil Kessel, gain back his retained salary, and have the Rangers retain the same amount of salary and trade him back to the Pittsburgh Penguins. I believe the trade would look something like this:

STEP 1

To Toronto:

Phil Kessel

To Pittsburgh:

A late draft pick compensation

STEP 2

To Toronto:

Future Considerations

To New York:

Phil Kessel

3rd round pick 2019 (for retaining the salary)

STEP 3

To New York:

Future Considerations

To Pittsburgh:

Phil Kessel ($1.2M retained by the Rangers)

In this situation, the Leafs would pay the Penguins and Rangers in order to claw back the salary they are retaining on Phil Kessel’s current contract.

The Rangers receive a third round pick for retaining the salary from Kessel’s contract and Toronto gets $1.2M in cap space. And just to reiterate, this could be disallowed by the NHL, but from my understanding of the CBA, I think this is a loophole the Leafs could use if they need to.

Also, just to add because this could be confusing, the Leafs are not trading their retained salary because that is against the CBA. They are acquiring Kessel, which in turn nullifies the current retention they have on his salary, trading him to the Rangers who will then retain salary from his contract and then the Rangers are trading him back to Pittsburgh.

At the end of the day, the Leafs have Brandon Pridham running their salary cap and he helped make the CBA. If anybody knows how to twist it to their favour, it will be him.

The Leafs are going to be fine.

Information from CapFriendly & NHLPA