The Toronto Maple Leafs are in a very lucky spot, at least in regards to qualifying offers they’ll have to put out there this summer.
Luckily for them, no single qualifying offer is going to throw off their salary cap to any great extent. In fact, the large majority will see the Toronto Maple Leafs only needing to basically match current entry-level deals or thereabouts.
Of course, these doesn’t take into account that players will in some cases want and in other cases expect some sort of raise to remain with the team.
However, the sheer fact these qualifying offers are affordable buys the Leafs the greatest amount of flexibility in terms of their future planning. After all, a qualifying offer doesn’t necessarily mean a new contract.
Toronto Maple Leafs Can Prevent Players Hitting Free Agency
By tendering qualifying offers, the Toronto Maple Leafs essentially buy their players in terms of retaining their rights, thus preventing free agency negotiations with any other team.
Looking to the Qualifying Offer Calculator offered by CapFriendly, the Toronto Maple Leafs should expect the costs against their current free agents to look like this:
- Joseph Duszak ($787,500)
- Pierre Engvall ($1.25 million)
- Ondrej Kase ($1.25 million)
- Chad Krys ($874,125)
- Timothy Liljegren ($874,125)
- Kristian Rubins ($787,500)
- Rasmus Sandin ($874,125)
- Ian Scott ($874,125)
Of that list, the most important players to keep tied down to the Toronto Maple Leafs organisation are Pierre Engvall, Timothy Liljegren and Rasmus Sandin, with Ondrej Kase right behind them.
In signing qualifying offers, Kyle Dubas will at least buy himself some time to evaluate what cap space he has to work them into. With the young defensemen, the signing of Mark Giordano to such a team-friendly deal will certainly send a message to them that they may need to sacrifice some value for the betterment of the team.
Unfortunately though, for every Jason Spezza and Mark Giordano deal; these young players can point to the likes of Auston Matthews, William Nylander and Mitch Marner when it comes to negotiating.
Pierre Engvall, in being one of the team’s most improved players, has likely secured himself a raise from his current salary. However, when it comes to ensuring they maintain his rights, the Toronto Maple Leafs only need match his current deal.
Ondrej Kase, likewise, only needs his current deal to be matched. Despite his impressive play through 50 games, there are certainly question marks here though given his significant concussion history.
With all that said, really the key factor here is in tendering qualifying offers in time to avoid players from becoming unrestricted free agents.
Looking at the Toronto Maple Leafs list, Joseph Duszak and Ian Scott are the only names that might not see qualifying offers. On the part of Ian Scott, that’s due to a significant injury history.
On the part of Joseph Duszak, he has voiced his determination to make an NHL roster, which given the logjam ahead of him, isn’t likely to happen with Toronto Maple Leafs. Tendering a qualifying offer and assuming that it was accepted, Duszak would simply be retained by the Leafs as a potential trade chip, albeit a throw-in one at most.
All in all, the tendering of qualifying offers to those eligible on the Toronto Maple Leafs roster should be a relatively straightforward process. Hopefully just another box-ticking exercise in what should hopefully be a low-key summer.