The Toronto Maple Leafs are set to take advantage of the NHL in yet another way.
Already this week, the NHL complained that the Toronto Maple Leafs were using referees that other teams didn’t have access too, so they made them stop.
Then, there was some sort of issue over the Leafs practice facilities being used in the summer, so now they have to stop doing that as well.
I wonder if, since the new flat cap gives the Leafs such advantages, if the NHL will just relent and raise it after-all?
What’s that you say? You heard relentless covered from TSN and Sportsnet about how the Leafs are screwed by the flat cap? Don’t believe it.
Toronto Maple Leafs Flat Cap
I’ve already written that the Leafs will get a competitive advantage from the flat cap because they are the only team without any bad contracts on the books.
If it cost a first round pick to move Patrick Marleau last summer, what is unloading a similar contract going to cost under the NHL’s new economic reality? Probably too high, which means the Leafs essentially have a higher salary cap limit than every other team who will be stuck with at least one dud.
The second way the Leafs will be helped by a flat cap is that there will be free agents who will choose to sign one-year deals this summer in an attempt to cash in next year, should things return to normal.
3 Potential Flat-Cap Windfalls
Should the NHL Free Agent market prove to be as terrible as we think it will be, there are three prominent UFAs that could look at the Leafs and see a team on the verge of winning, and decide to joing them.
Scanning the current health and political situations of both America and Canada, it seems to me that a contending Canadian team with deep pockets and a great cap situation would be the ideal choice of every free-agent.
First, Tyson Barrie.
Originally acquired with no intention to re-sign him, Barrie is definitely not getting anywhere close to the formerly rumoured eight million.
But he’s still a 65 point defenseman in his prime. He’s the rare right-handed shot.
If he were to take a pay cut to stick around – and why wouldn’t he? – then the Leafs could really cash in.
Second, Alex Pietrangleo. He would have been looking at becoming the NHL’s top paid blue-liner, coming off what is likely to be his first Norris Trophy win.
Signing a multi-year deal would cost him millions, so look for both him and my number-one choice, Taylor Hall, to take discounts with contenders.
I foresee Pietrangelo staying in St. Louis, but Hall is a wildcard and the real prize anyways. A former 95 point Hart Trophy winner, Hall would make the Leafs into an offensive power-house.
They are already the fastest team in hockey, why not add one of the fastest players? A Hall-Matthews-Marner line is the stuff of fantasy.
A pay cut, a Cup, and then cash in next year when the market should be much better.
Its not likely, maybe, but it’s also not impossible.