The Toronto Maple Leafs thankfully this summer aren’t going to have to resort to the tactics of the Vegas Golden Knights to remain under the salary cap.
For a city built on money and people’s misfortune, it feels almost ironic that the Vegas Golden Knights find themselves so challenged by the salary cap; the Toronto Maple Leafs have it easy by comparison.
While it clearly hasn’t all been plain sailing for Toronto over the past few seasons and they have made their own cap mishaps, it pales in comparison to the bind that Vegas finds itself in.
The Maple Leafs may have paid a steep price to rid themselves of Patrick Marleau or Petr Mrazek, but it really doesn’t compare to the practical giveaways of Max Pacioretty and Marc-Andre Fleury.
Toronto Maple Leafs Actually Have A Reasonably Healthy Cap Situation
When you start looking at the fact that the Vegas Golden Knights gave away Max Pacioretty and Dylan Coghlan, a reasonable depth defenseman for future considerations; you realize just how dire their cap situation is.
By comparison, the deals that the Toronto Maple Leafs had to wangle to rid themselves of the final year of Patrick Marleau or the final two years of Petr Mrazek at least returned some value.
In the case of Marleau, ironically also involving the Carolina Hurricanes; it cost the Leafs a first round pick with the minor value returned being an upgrade of a seventh round pick to a sixth.
While that may seem like a very minor piece of business, the Golden Knights just had to give up a player that’s basically been point-per-game, albeit with some injury struggles, the last three seasons and a 24 year-old defenseman with almost 100 games NHL experience.
Let’s also not forget that the initial cost of acquiring Max Pacioretty included Nick Suzuki – that’s not exactly a cheap price that Vegas have paid to clean up their salary mess.
Patrick Marleau by the time he was traded was offering roughly a point every second game (per Elite Prospects) on just $750,000 less per season. It was by no means a steal by the Leafs, but speaks volumes to how much deeper the Vegas cap troubles are.
Likewise, the trade of Petr Mrazek essentially saw the Toronto Maple Leafs trade down 13 places in the draft; hardly a steep cost. Vegas traded their Vezina-winning goalie in Fleury for a European forward that hasn’t seen so much as a glimpse of NHL action.
A lot of it comes down to mismanagement. While people will endlessly berate the Toronto Maple Leafs for the fact that John Tavares, Mitch Marner and Auston Matthews all earn over $10 million per season, while ignoring that they’ve basically been a top team capable of winning since the day they were all signed.
The Golden Knights are significantly over cap, to the tune of over $5.5 million per CapFriendly. The Toronto Maple Leafs project to be just $1.5 million over cap. The Leafs have a ton of options to move that out, and while Vegas does too, the difference is the Leafs can replace anyone they move without hurting their team much, if at all.
Now of course, a lot of this can be balanced out with some crafty cap gymnastics; long-term injured reserve placements (Lehner’s recent injury announcement is beneficial in that regard) and players being dumped in the minors.
However, as a Leafs fan you have to be a little thankful that their situation is not as messed up as Vegas. They have certainly made missteps along the way, but looking at Vegas and their acquisitions in their short history, it feels like the desert is a lot more chaotic than Toronto.
Call it an unfair comparison, call it what you like, but the Toronto Maple Leafs are doing a darn sight better than the Golden Knights in terms of cap management.