The Toronto Maple Leafs will be active when NHL Free Agency opens on July 13th despite what some may consider a limited budget.
Despite the recent trade for Matt Murray, their top priority is still likely to be goaltending. Last season’s starter, Jack Campbell, seems to have priced himself off of the Toronto Maple Leafs, and Erik Kallgren and Joseph Woll may be more suited for the Toronto Marlies at this point in their careers.
The next biggest need for the Leafs will be a few bottom-six forwards. They may be looking to replace recently retired, Jason Spezza, they didn’t tender a qualifying offer to Ondrej Kase, and Ilya Mikheyev and Colin Blackwell look to be testing the unrestricted free agent market.
Capfriendly lists the Toronto Maple Leafs as having $$6,360,217 in projected cap space, but that number is slightly deceiving. On one hand, Nick Robertson and Kyle Clifford may start on the Toronto Marlies and wont count towards the cap.
On the other hand, RFA’s Rasmus Sandin and Pierre Engvall will likely be re-signed for more than their qualifying offers. The Toronto Maple Leafs could also clear cap space by trading any number of their players including those often rumoured to be on the move like Jake Muzzin, Alex Kerfoot and Justin Holl. (some stats moneypuck.com).
5 Free Agents the Toronto Maple Leafs Should Sign on July 13th
This is a list of the five players I would sign on day one of NHL free agency if I were in charge of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Obviously, this list is very subjective.
I’ve been able to fit all of these players onto the Toronto Maple Leafs roster while remaining cap compliant. I’ve used projected signings based on an algorithmic chart from DobberHockey that has been very accurate in predicting signing salaries so far.
In this scenario, I’m assuming Sandin and Engvall both sign for $2 million each as that is their projected salary. To make this work, I’m also going to say that Toronto starts with a 21 player roster and Wayne Simmonds is the odd man out, though Toronto may actually make another trade to free up some cap space.
Let’s start with a projected 4th line addition and then move up to some more meaningful players: