Phil Kessel Will Haunt Toronto Maple Leafs Until 2022
Phil Kessel hasn’t played with the Toronto Maple Leafs since 2015, but the team will continue to pay a portion of his contract until 2022.
Although this isn’t as bad as the famous Bobby Bonilla contract, the Toronto Maple Leafs are wishing they didn’t have to pay Kessel anymore.
In 2014, the Leafs signed Kessel to an eight-year, $64 million contract extension hoping that he would be apart of the team for years to come.
However, one year later, he was gone.
Toronto Maple Leafs and Phil Kessel
On July 1, 2015, the Toronto Maple Leafs traded Kessel, Tyler Biggs, Tim Erixon and a 2016 second round pick to Pittsburgh for Scott Harrington, Kasperi Kapanen, Nick Spaling, a 2016 first round pick and 2016 third round pick.
With an $8 million per year contract, the Leafs decided to retain $1.2 million of Kessel’s deal to lower his cap-hit to $6.8 million, thus helping Pittsburgh afford him.
At the time, that didn’t seem like too big of a deal.
Kessel is a prolific goal-scorer in the NHL, but wasn’t a player to build around. The Leafs were about to reconstruct their team and go through an excessive rebuild, so Kessel was disposable.
It made sense to take on the $1.2 million, gain assets from Pittsburgh and move on. I mean, they were able shed $6.8 million in cap-space so the $1.2 million didn’t seem like it would haunt the Leafs.
Well, that certainly changed.
The current Leafs roster is right up against the salary-cap with little room to spare. Having $1.2 million of cap-space would do wonders for this team.
For example, when the Leafs were struggling early in the season, everyone screamed for a back-up goalie. However, with zero dollars of cap-space, the team couldn’t go out and sign someone for even as little as $1 million.
Kessel essentially cost the Leafs from signing a free agent goaltender. Although the team ended up securing Jack Campbell as their back-up, they needed to give up assets in Trevor Moore and draft picks to get him.
The luxury of cap-space gives a team the freedom to secure a player without burning assets, so it’s unfortunate they needed to do this because of Kessel.
If we forecast the Leafs salary cap for the next few years, they’re going to continue to be tight to the cap, unless they trade a player like Alexander Kerfoot, Kasperi Kapanen or Andreas Johnsson.
The retained salary for Kessel is unmovable so there’s nothing the team will be able to do until the contract expires in 2022.
Next. The Phil Kessel Trade Tree. dark
The next time the Toronto Maple Leafs have interest in a player or can’t sign someone due to cap-space, thank Kessel.