The Secret to the Toronto Maple Leafs So-Called Salary Cap Problems

The Toronto Maple Leafs are said to have a salary cap problem.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are said to be desperate for a defenseman.

Neither of these things is true.

Not remotely.

I mean, it makes for good press, and the team hasn’t exactly lived up to expectations (due mostly to injuries and bad goaltending), so people are going to talk.

But if you realize how good the team already is, and realize what they have to work with internally, then you also realize that they don’t really have any actual problems, or any glaring needs.

Toronto Maple Leafs Defense and Cap

The NHL can’t lower the cap without somehow getting players to roll back their salaries.  At least I don’t think so.

So the likely scenario is that the salary cap for next year just stays the same as it is this year.

You’d think the Leafs would be in trouble in this case, but it likely helps them more than it hurts them due to what it will do their less prepared competition.  (The Leafs are the NHL’s only competitive team without a bad long-term contract).

The Leafs cap situation is perfect.

They have properly committed the majority of their funds to four elite superstars, which isn’t currently accepted as the best way to operate, because they are the first team to try it.

Despite that, the fact that only 10% of the NHL has any appreciable effect on games makes it the correct approach.  In a cap league, all non-elite player should be seen as more or less interchangeable.

Most teams don’t recognize this, but the Leafs do.

The Leafs already have $77 million committed to next season.  (Capfriendly.com).

If the cap doesn’t go up, that’s four million to spend.

Which means that Kasperi Kapanen and Andreas Johnson are getting traded.  After that, the Leafs would have over $11 million to spend.

With that money, they can sign Ilya Mikheyev ($2 million) and Travis Dermott ($3 million) to contract extensions.

They then have $2.5 million left over to sign Clifford ($1.5, a slight overpay), Denis Malgin ($1 million) and Jason Spezza ($1 million).

The additions of Nick Robertson, Rasmus Sandin and Timothy Liljegren will all be on entry-level deals that help the team immensely.

The Toronto Maple Leafs lineup will then look like this:

Hyman – Matthews – Marner

Mikheyev – Tavares – Nylander 

Barabanov – Kerfoot – Robertson

Clifford –  Spezza – Engvall     

(Malgin, Brookes,Petan) 

Rielly – Dermott 

Muzzin – Holl

Sandin – Liljegren 

(Marincin) 

This lineup would be among the NHL’s very best and easily fit into the league’s probably flat cap situation.

The reason the Leafs cap situation isn’t a problem is because they’ve got $11 million wrapped up in 3 x third-liners that they could trade in about two seconds.

This flexibility and their correct approach to the cap will allow them to weather the NHL’s uncertainty better than almost any team in the NHL.

They are the only team in the NHL without a bad long-term contract.

As for that blue-line, I know people won’t be excited by it, but Justin Holl and Travis Dermott are extremely underrated.   And it has the correct amount of puck movers to stay at home ratio, which is 6:0.

In conclusion, the two things that give Toronto Maple Leafs fans the most anxiety – the salary cap and the blue line – are not actual problems.