Could the Toronto Maple Leafs Sign UFA Jeff Skinner?

The Toronto Maple Leafs signed John Tavares last July first to the biggest UFA contract in NHL history.

Could the Toronto Maple Leafs sign Jeff Skinner for an encore?

It might sound crazy, as the Leafs cap situation has been a topic of conversation ever since they signed Tavares, Nylander and Matthews.  It might seem like the last team that would take a run at Skinner would be the Leafs.

But stranger things have happened.

Toronto Maple Leafs and Jeff Skinner

Jeff Skinner just scored a career high 40 goals for the Sabres this season. He is one of the NHL’s best goal scorers, and he’s only 26.

He also plays left wing, a position in which the Leafs are weak.  Andreas Johnsson scored at a first line rate this season and appears to have a very bright future.

But Zach Hyman shouldn’t be in anyone’s top-six, Patrick Marleau is done, and the Leafs could really use an upgrade.

But can they afford to buy another Cadillac?

It’s not impossible.

Assuming the Salary Cap rises to it’s projected $83.5 million, the Leafs currently have about nine million in cap space.

This includes Gardiner, Hainsey, Marincin and Ennis all coming off the books.

Let’s just go ahead and assume that Mitch Marner eats that space, and say the Leafs are pretty much capped out.

So how could they create enough space to also sign Jeff Skinner?

It’s easier than you think.

Connor Brown, Zach Hyman and Nikita Zaitsev all get moved for picks, and you’ve got enough money to spend $6.5 million between Andreas Johnsson and Kasperi Kapanen, with $2.5 left over.

Then you convince Marleau to waive his no-trade trade clause, and you pay a team like Ottawa to take him for a second round pick.  Since he makes almost no real money – only cap hit – it’s doable, as long as he waives his NTC.

Now with the money left over after signing Johnsson and Kapanen, and moving Marleau you can sign Jeff Skinner to an $8 million cap hit, and still be slightly under the cap once you move Nathan Horton to the LTIR.

Cap friendly has a great “Be the GM” feature, and you can play around with it for fun, and get an idea of how the Cap works and what kind of team the Leafs can ice.

The team I created looks like this:

Skinner – Matthews – Nylander

Johnsson – Tavares – Marner

Moore – Kadri – Kapanen

Engvall – Petan – Bracco

Gauthier

with a defense of:

Rielly – Muzzin

Dermott – Liljegren

Sandin – Rosen 

Holl 

Andersen

Sparks 

I think it’s a pretty great team.  Top line players are worth paying, but why above average salaries to players like Brown and Hyman when you can replace most of what they do with players on their entry-level deals.

If you give the same minutes to Moore that you’d otherwise give to Hyman, you get the same result for a little less than half the money.

The team is a little more raw, but it’s got more high-end talent and a much higher ceiling.  It’s definitely taking the “studs and duds” mentality to a stretching point, but I would argue that this is the best possible way to use the salary cap.

The Toronto Maple Leafs probably won’t sign Jeff Skinner.  However, the point of this article wasn’t really to convince you that they should. It was to show how much flexibility the team actually has with it’s cap situation if they are creative.