Toronto Maple Leafs: Current Salary Cap Outlook

How Close to the Limit are the Toronto Maple Leafs?

As everyone across the league knows, the Toronto Maple Leafs are tight against the salary cap. But, even with minimal amounts of money to spend, they were still able to make multiple moves during free agency.

They were able to re-sign Jason Spezza to a league minimum of deal of $700,00 and brought in the likes of Wayne Simmonds ($1.5 million), T.J. Brodie ($5 million), Jimmy Vesey ($900,000), Travis Boyd ($700,000), Zach Bogosian ($1 million), Aaron Dell ($800,000) and veteran Joe Thornton to a league minimum as well.  The Leafs also signed Ilya Mikheyev last night to a deal with a cap hit of $1.6 million.

Some of those moves were able to be made thanks to the departures of Tyson Barrie, Cody Ceci and Kyle Clifford who made almost $11 million combined last season as members of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Even with all the moves and departures, the front office still has some work to do  Travis Dermott is still unsigned.

How is the cap Spread out Among the Players?

As it is with most teams, the forwards tend to take up most of the cap as they are more offensive players on a roster than defensive. According to cap friendly, 12 forwards on the Leafs combine to make $51,561,033.

The top earners are Auston Matthews ($11,634,000), John Tavares ($11,000,000) and Mitch Marner ($10,893,000). William Nylander is set to take home $6,692,366. These four combine to make $40,219,366 which is almost half the salary cap of $81.5 million.

On the blue line, seven defensemen are combining to make $20,444,167. Jake Muzzin is the highest earning defenseman on the team with $5.625 million while Morgan Rielly and Brodie both have a salary of $5 million.

Between the pipes, Frederik Andersen and Jack Campbell take up $6.65 million of the cap with Andersen’s salary at $5 million. (all figures capfriendly.com).

Phil Kessel is set to make $8 million this season but $1.2 million is being covered by the Toronto Maple Leafs as part of the trade when they shipped him to Pittsburgh back in 2015. This brings the cap hit to $81,675,200, which is slightly over the salary cap (but teams can go over by 10% without penalty in the offseason).

The Toronto Maple Leafs will have to add Dermott’s salary and while that seems problematic, they have several players who they can shuttle back and forth to the Marlies while carrying less than the 23 man roster limit.

The Leafs should be able to carry their entire roster including Dermott without going over the cap.  Considering their depth and stated happiness with their current roster, this should prove to be a sounds strategy.