The Toronto Maple Leafs Roster Is Seriously Underpaid

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.

Toronto Maple Leafs Defense

• Jake Muzzin
  • 2019-20 Stats (Per 82 Games): 9 Goals, 26 Assists
  • Current Contract: $5.625M
  • What He’s Actually Worth? $5.4M
  • Difference: -$209K
• Morgan Rielly
  • 2019-20 Stats (Per 82 Games): 5 Goals, 42 Assists
  • Current Contract: $5M
  • What He’s Actually Worth? $5.757M
  • Difference: +$750K
• TJ Brodie
  • 2019-20 Stats (Per 82 Games): 5 Goals, 19 Assists
  • Current Contract: $5M
  • What He’s Actually Worth? $3.459M
  • Difference: -$1.54M
• Justin Holl
  • 2019-20 Stats (Per 82 Games): 2 Goals, 19 Assists
  • Current Contract: $2M
  • What He’s Actually Worth? $2.652M
  • Difference: +$652M
• Zach Bogosian
  • 2019-20 Stats (Per 82 Games): 3 Goals, 18 Assists
  • Current Contract: $1M
  • What He’s Actually Worth? $2.73M
  • Difference: +$1.73M
• Rasmus Sandin
  • 2019-20 Stats (Per 82 Games): 3 Goals, 18 Assists
  • Current Contract: $894K
  • What He’s Actually Worth? $2.928M
  • Difference: +$2.034M
• Timothy Liljegren
  • 2019-20 Stats (Per 82 Games): 0 Goals, 7 Assists
  • Current Contract: $863K
  • What He’s Actually Worth? $745K
  • Difference: -$117K
• Calle Rosén
  • 2019-20 Stats (Per 82 Games): 0 Goals, 21 Assists
  • Current Contract: $750K
  • What He’s Actually Worth? $2.05M
  • Difference: +1.3M
• Travis Dermott
  • 2019-20 Stats (Per 82 Games): 6 Goals, 10 Assists
  • Current Contract: ($863K Last Year, Current RFA)
  • What He’s Actually Worth? $2.7M
  • Difference: +$1.857M
• Mikko Lehtonen
  • 2019-20 Stats (Per 82 Games): N/A
  • Current Contract: N/A
  • What He’s Actually Worth? N/A
  • Difference: N/A

Toronto Maple Leafs Goaltending

• Freddie Andersen
  • 2019-20 Stats (Per 82 Games): 29 Wins, 3 Shutouts
  • Current Contract: $5M
  • What He’s Actually Worth? $5.525M
  • Difference: +$525M
• Jack Campbell
  • 2019-20 Stats (Per 82 Games): 11 Wins, 0 Shutouts (including LA stats)
  • Current Contract: $1.6M
  • What He’s Actually Worth? $1.4M
  • Difference: -$200K

The Toronto Maple Leafs are getting much more bang for their buck out of their forwards, but they still have a few players that are out-performing their salary. Morgan Rielly is incredibly underpaid at $5M per season and even in a down-year for him, he out-performed his contract.

With another year under his belt and a full season, Toronto should also be getting a much better player than their contract with Rasmus Sandin. He only played 28 games this year, but at an 82-game pace, he would have had more points than Holl, Dermott, Rosen and Bogosian.

Toronto Maple Leafs Know How to Construct a Roster

Just because the Torontno Maple Leafs haven’t won a playoff round in the Auston Matthews Era doesn’t mean the team has constructed a bad roster. The team is actually getting way more out of their depth players than expected and the big-boys are still performing at a high-level.

As ridiculous as it may sound to pay to four forwards $40.489M per season, they actually performed at a $40.084M pace this year, so they’re worth every penny. Marner, Matthews and Nylander are only going to get better throughout their contract, while Tavares will continue to rack up roughly 75 points per year.

Overall, if you look at the roster right now, the team clearly knows what they’re doing. Being able to exploit talent with Entry Level Contracts and veterans is a great way to make up your roster. Especially when you have someone like Jason Spezza who’s only making $700K on-pace for 13 goals and 36 points in an 82-game regular season.

In order to win the Stanley Cup, you need to have a core of talent that can get you there. If Matthews, Tavares, Nylander and Marner don’t show up, the team isn’t going anywhere anways. However, if they play the way they’re supposed to, they have more than enough depth to get over the edge.

Their defense still needs a little help, but bringing in Bogosian and Brodie should help balance out the team and as a result, Muzzin and Rielly’s stats will only rise next year.

Like I mentioned before, this little experiment I made up isn’t perfect, but it gives you a better idea of what every goal, assist, win and shutout is worth in the NHL and how the Leafs actually have a ton of talent that is underpaid.