Toronto Maple Leafs Options If the NHL Allows Compliance Buy-Outs

The Toronto Maple Leafs salary cap picture for next year remains uncertain.

At first, prior to the current league shutdown, the NHL had some very good news for the Toronto Maple Leafs: the Salary Cap was going to go up significantly next year.

Unfortunately, with the NHL potentially having to cancel the rest of this season, the salary cap may not go up.

This would be bad news for the Leafs.

It is a situation, however, that could be mitigated somewhat if the NHL allowed teams to buy out existing contracts, like they did after the last time there was a play stoppage.

Toronto Maple Leafs and Buy-Outs

A Compliance Buy-Out would give each team the chance to pay out the remainder of a player’s contract and make him a free agent.  This would cost money, but it wouldn’t count against the salary cap.

There seems to be some possibility this can happen, since the league’s salary cap is revenue based and revenue seems sure to go down with the pausing of the season.

Allowing a compliance buy-out is similar to raising the cap, in that each team’s worst mistake can no longer penalize their ability to compete.

As mentioned here, such a situation would help the Leafs more than any other team in hockey.

The Toronto Maple Leafs do not have any players they would want to exercise a buyout on.  They would therefore most likely use their financial clout to accept a trade from another team that doesn’t want to spend the actual cash to get out of a contract.

Many of the NHL’s lesser teams are in or could potentially be in financial trouble, but the Leafs will never have that problem.

No other team is set up better to withstand a massive loss of revenue, and so the Leafs can turn this to their advantage. (All cap info capfriendly.com).

Here are some players the Toronto Maple Leafs might look at trading for under such a situation:

Brent Seasbrook: He currently brings less value to the Blackhawks than a random replacement player would, and he costs nearly seven million per year for the next four years.  No one in the NHL has a worse contract.

Justin Abdelkader: Detroit would likely love out of this deal. He has three years at almost $5 Million per left on a deal.  He is 33 and had three points in 49 games this year. 

Louis Erikson:  2 More years with the Canucks at $6 million.

Jeff Skinner:  Imagine what the Sabres would pay if the Leafs were willing to buy out the next seven years of Jeff Skinner’s preposterous contract.   Unlikely since he just signed it, but damn is this a brutal deal.

Jordan Staal:  The Hurricanes owe him $6 million per year for the next three years.  They just spent $6 million to buy a first from the Leafs last summer, but perhaps the recent shutdown would allow them to trade the pick back to the Leafs in exchange for buying out two thirds of Staal’s $18 million.

Anyways, the point is that under these circumstances, the Toronto Maple Leafs would stand to win big.