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The Toronto Maple Leafs Roster Is Seriously Underpaid

By Stephen Nixon

DALLAS, TX - OCTOBER 09: (L-R) Morgan Rielly #44, Auston Matthews #34, Nazem Kadri #43, John Tavares #91 and Mitchell Marner #16 of the Toronto Maple Leafs celebrate the second goal of the game by Matthews against the Dallas Stars in the second period at American Airlines Center on October 9, 2018 in Dallas, Texas. (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
DALLAS, TX - OCTOBER 09: (L-R) Morgan Rielly #44, Auston Matthews #34, Nazem Kadri #43, John Tavares #91 and Mitchell Marner #16 of the Toronto Maple Leafs celebrate the second goal of the game by Matthews against the Dallas Stars in the second period at American Airlines Center on October 9, 2018 in Dallas, Texas. (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images) /
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Toronto Maple Leafs Trade Assets
WINNIPEG, MANITOBA – OCTOBER 4: Forwards Auston Matthews #34 and forward Mitchell Marner #16 of the Toronto Maple Leafs . (Photo by Jason Halstead /Getty Images) /

We need to stop worrying about the Toronto Maple Leafs and the salary cap.

Toronto Maple Leafs management understands that they can only spend $81.5M per season and they’re doing a pretty good job at it. Fans and some media members need to stop looking at some over-payments of players and understand that they’re actually doing an amazing job under-paying others.

When you construct a hockey team, you want to find as much talent for as little as possible. Whether that’s through drafting, signing players overseas or getting veterans at the league-minimum, there’s a number of ways to get more bang for your buck.

For the upcoming season, without playing a game yet, I already know that Alexander Barabanov, Mikko Lehtonen, Ramus Sandin, Nick Robertson and Jason Spezza will all be making much less than what they deserve. Thanks to good drafting, scouting and a team that has a chance to win the Stanley Cup, the Leafs will continue to have players who should be making much more than their contract says.

When someone like Dave Feschuk of The Toronto Star writes about how John Tavares put the Leafs in a cap-crunch and made players like Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner demand more money as a result, it frustrates me. Saying that Tavares isn’t a fit is a very bad take. Tavares has nothing to do with the Leafs not getting past the First Round.

First and foremost, the team lost in seven games to a Boston Bruins team that ended up losing in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals in 2018-19, and then they lost against Columbus in one of the unluckiest series the team has ever played. Go back and look at the tape. Tavares was brilliant throughout those five games and if they play that series 1000 times, the Leafs win 995 of them.

Leafs Are Underpaying Most of Their Roster

Back to my original point though. Tavares very well could be overpaid but it’s not by much. It’s OK to pay a guy $11M per season if he’s Tavares. He’s the captain of this team and has proved he’s worth every penny. You can count on him scoring 30 goals and producing 75-85 points every single year.

I did a fun experiment to outline what each player is really worth on the Leafs. Here’s how I broke down:

  • Forwards:
    • 1 goal = $150,000
    • 1 assist = $75,000
    • Example: Forward who scores 20 goals and 20 assists is worth $4.5M per season
  • Defenseman:
    • 1 goal = $300,000
    • 1 assist = $100,000
    • Example: Defenseman who scores 10 goals and 30 assists is worth $6M per season
  • Goalies:
    • 1 win = $175,000
    • 1 shutout = $150,000
    • Example: Goalie who has 35 wins and 5 shutouts is worth $6.875M per season

This isn’t perfect because there’s obviously more variables that a hockey player brings than goals and assists, but this is easy to follow. The objective of the game is to score more goals than the other team, so if you’re able to get a player on a cheap contract scoring 15-20 goals per season, that’s a huge benefit to your team.

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