The Toronto Maple Leafs are going to make a trade.
Zach Hyman is set to come of the I.R shortly, and the Toronto Maple Leafs cannot – at present – accommodate his cap hit.
Hyman makes $2.25 million.
The Leafs are maxed out.
Therefore, a trade must occur.
Toronto Maple Leafs Cap Problems
The Leafs cap problems are akin to getting an expensive repair bill on your Mercedes – sure, it’s expensive, but the fact is, you own a Mercedes, so who cares?
The price for assembling an all-star team in a salary cap world is that you have to make some tough decisions.
Of course, these would be more palatable if the team was winning, but (stop me if you heard this one before) that will eventually happen.
The Leafs could waive up to three players to make room for Hyman, and play short handed.
They could try to sneak some combo of Nic Petan, Nick Shore, Jason Spezza or Dymtro Timashov through the waiver wire (good luck) or they could make some trades.
The Leafs could try to trade Cody Ceci, but reporters close to the team seem to feel like that’s a non-starter. He’s not cut out for a top pairing role, so I’m not so sure these guys will prove correct.
The only reason signing Ceci ever made sense in the first place (rather than letting him walk) was to be able to eventually flip him for a draft pick.
This seems like the easiest and most obvious way for the Leafs to get out of this jam, but most people don’t seem to think so.
Losing Justin Holl to waivers would be downright idiotic, now that he’s actually playing, and playing well.
Same goes with Timashov, Shore and Spezza. If the Leafs had a coach more willing to play him, I’d also say the same thing about Petan.
Then there’s the fact that Kapanen makes $3.2 million. He’d be a desirable player to a lot of teams, and since he’s never going to play ahead of Nylander, Marner, Hyman or Johnson, he’s nothing but a third liner on the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The Leafs also have Ilya Mikheyev and Trevor Moore. Neither of those guys . deserves to play on a fourth line, and, at least theoretically, both of them can make Kapanen expendable.
Bottom line, Kyle Dubas has options.
He could trade Hyman.
He could trade Ceci.
He could trade Kapanen.
It’s well known that Marincin and Petan are available, but even if you traded both of them, you’ll still have to waive someone and play shorthanded. There goes your depth.
The smart money – i.e the mainstream media – says that the Leafs will trade Petan and Marincin, then waive one of Shore, Spezza or Timashov.
I say Kyle Dubas is smarter than that.
While we will have to wait and see who is right, we know one thing: the Leafs will be making a trade soon.