Toronto Maple Leafs: Rising Cap, Kessel Money a Big Help

The Toronto Maple Leafs got some not unexpected good news the other day when the NHL made it official that the salary cap was rising by one million dollars.

In 2018, the Toronto Maple Leafs looked at the trifecta of TV, Gambling and Expansion money on the horizon and timed it perfectly so that they could pay all their big-name players and reap the rewards of a skyrocketing salary cap, which is tied directly to league revenue.

Unfortunately, they did not anticipate a world wide pandemic, and what would have been a major advantage was never realized.

Sure, every team had to deal with the pandemic and the Leafs aren’t unique in that sense.  They did, however, make a very smart, perfectly timed, bet that would have given them a huge advantage, and it sucks they never got to cash in on the windfall.

Still, it’s hard to argue that things haven’t worked out nicely. The team hasn’t won, but they were a good enough team to do so – it just didn’t happen.

Now, as the cap rises, the Kessel money comes off the books, and a trio of potential superstars gets ready to take the next step, the Leafs are, once again, in a very good position.

Toronto Maple Leafs and the Salary Cap

The Leafs ability to find enough league-minimum players, every summer, so that they can play the odds and have one or two of them work out and make them look smart, means they are usually fine with letting non-core players walk.

That they have been able to be a top team – one who was good enough to win a Cup or President’s Trophy, even if they didn’t – despite the cap being frozen proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were correct to employ the “Studs and Duds” salary cap philosophy.

Now that the cap is going up, and the team has developed NHL ready potential stars (Robertson, Sandin, Liljegren) their cap philosophy is going to go from keeping them afloat, to down right dominating.

Just think: If there was no pandemic, the Leafs strategy would have allowed them to add at least one or two more stars to their roster, and that’s while dealing with the Mark Hunter Draft Drought that prevented them from using rookies to fill out their lineup the last few years.

But now the cap is going up, the prospects are ready, and the team’s Salary Cap philosophy can finally work in conjunction with those two things, instead of making up for the lack of them.   This team could get really good, really fast.

With the contracts coming off the books, the Kessel money gone, and the cap raise, the Toronto Maple Leafs have nearly $8 million dollars in cap space to start the summer.

There’s another $10 million if they want to trade Mrazek, Kerfoot, Holl, Simmonds and Clifford.

There’s a further $10 after that if they want to get Muzzin or even Brodie to waive their no-trade clauses.

The team has no problematic long-term contracts that they will be forced to buy out or live with. The worst they have is Mrazek’s and it was signed with the knowledge they’d likely have to move it (either Campbell is good and they have to sign him making Mrazek’s money untenable, or Campbell is bad and they need a more expensive goalie, thus making Mrazek’s money untenable).

The bottom line is that for the first season in memory, the Leafs will have  a rising cap, graduating prospects on an already competitive team and their now time-tested cap strategies working together.

The Toronto Maple Leafs built an elite team that is every bit as good as the two teams currently fighting for league supremacy, and they did it with two hands (the flat cap, Mark Hunters Draft Drought) tied behind their back.

The shackles are now off, and the rest of the NHL is under advisement to watch out.