Stop Saying the Toronto Maple Leafs Are in “Cap Hell”
By James Tanner
The Toronto Maple Leafs salary cap situation is not as bad as you think.
The media has stoked the flames, but the fact is, the Toronto Maple Leafs salary cap situation is firmly in control, and exactly where they want it do be.
The fact is, you don’t have cap problems unless you have good players.
And the Leafs have more good players than any team in the NHL.
They have also got their salary cap problems firmly in control.
Cap Hell Doesn’t Exist
Like the place it is named after, Cap Hell isn’t a real place. It’s just invented by people who should know better, in order to scare you.
To me, if the cap situation were actually hellish, then the Leafs would be on the verge of losing good players, or they wouldn’t be able to compete because of it. ,
Neither of those things are true.
The Leafs will lose zero core players, they’ll improve their team this summer, and they’ll enter next season as the favorites to win the Stanley Cup.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have already signed Auston Matthews and William Nylander to what will easily and obviously turn out to be team-friendly deals.
They will sign Mitch Marner, and if they want to, they can sign both Andreas Johnsson and Kasperi Kapanen. Now, they might trade Kapanen, but it won’t be for cap reasons. The team is extremely deep on the right side, and dealing from a position of strength only makes sense.
The Leafs have William Nylander, Mitch Marner, Jeremy Bracco and Iilya Mikheyev all NHL ready and able to play the right-wing.
But if they can keep Kapanen if they want. Certainly his speed is a huge bonus, and he’s a good player. The cap won’t dictate what they do here.
The Leafs are doing exactly what they planned on. Does anyone think they just signed John Tavares on a whim? They know exactly what they are doing.
The Leafs will pay all their good players, and they will fill in the blanks with rookies and league minimum vets like Petan, Moore, Ennis and Mikheyev. It might even turn out to be the best way to spend money, because the difference between second-liners and everyone else is marginal at best.
Cap space will be cleared when they elect not to re-sign Ron Hainsey and Jake Gardiner.
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It can be further cleared by trading Nikita Zaitsev, Connor Brown or Zach Hyman. Even further if they can find a way – and they will – to get rid of Patrick Marleau.
That’s over 20 million in salary, and you can replace all those guys without impacting your team at all. The only big loss would be Gardiner, but given that he is approaching 30 and has a bad back, is this even a loss?
When you talk about inserting rookies into the lineup, people get all nervous and afraid. It’s like they forget how good of a team the Leafs iced three years ago when they had nine rookies.
You would think that would be first-hand proof that playing rookies isn’t nearly as harmful as people think, but then again, if proof was all people needed to change their minds, there wouldn’t be any resistance to advanced stats.
Bottom line: If you don’t have to make hard decisions because of the salary cap, either your team sucks or isn’t spending enough money to compete. The Toronto Maple Leafs are at the point in their development where hard decisions are par for the course.
Next. Is This a Good Trade Partner for the Leafs?. dark
It doesn’t mean they are in Cap Hell. Until they lose an actual star player because of a salary decision, that will remain a fictional place.