On Monday, August 29th, the NHL network did a segment on Toronto Maple Leafs forward Michael Bunting.
During this segment, they brought up the Toronto Maple Leafs salary cap situation.
They don’t believe there is enough money for the Leafs to re-sign Bunting after this season. I don’t think Jamison Coyle or Steve Konroyd bothered to research Toronto’s salary cap before their segment. If they did, they would see that, as of right now, Toronto has $15.1 million to spend next off-season. (Salary cap info from capfriendly.com)
In addition, Jake Muzzin, TJ Brodie and Matt Murray combine to make roughly another $15 million, and while there is no guarantee the Leafs can get out of those contracts, there is some chance that they can, and, along with the option to either buyout or put players on the LTIR, the Leafs have much more flexibility than it might initially seem.
Mr. Konroyd relates the Bunting situation to the one Toronto had with Zach Hyman.
The Toronto Maple Leafs wanted to keep Hyman but did not offer him the money or term he got from the Edmonton Oilers. I have an issue with the NHL network using this narrative, because the Leafs have an active, ongoing policy not to overpay mid-range players, and they were never interested in giving out the ridiculous contract the Oilers gave Hyman.
They replaced him with a player making 5x less who had arguably a better season than Hyman ever had in Toronto. That is just good management, and it seems disingenuous to frame the story in a way to make the Leafs look bad.
Bunting will likely be Toronto’s top priority after this season. He is at the top of the list for unrestricted free agents Toronto must re-sign. Can the Maple Leafs afford to re-sign Bunting for $5 million? Yes, if they want to.
They may also decide to let someone else overpay him and re-enact the entire Hyman drama, but they are certainly not going to be forced to lose him because of cap mismanagement.
I don’t see why this is an issue for the NHL network and others. Toronto is not in as much salary cap trouble as some would like you to believe. The fact that they’re talking about this now is crazy when we still have an entire season ahead of us.
Toronto Maple Leafs Salary Cap
Another point made during the segment is that Toronto won’t have enough money to re-sign Auston Matthews in two years if they give Bunting a big contract.
Again, if Coyle and Konroyd did some research, they would see that Toronto currently has over $50 million in available cap space for the 2024 off-season.
Everyone should know that Toronto general manager Kyle Dubas will keep enough to re-sign Matthews. It’s just preposterous to think the Leafs are going to be unable to afford Matthews. He may very well choose to test the free-agent waters, but the Leafs are not going to lose him because they can’t offer him enough money, and to say otherwise is wrong.
The NHL’s deputy commissioner Bill Daly has even stated that after the 2023-24 season, the NHL expects the salary cap to go up significantly. Toronto will already have enough to re-sign Matthews when the time comes. Having the salary cap go up significantly will only make things easier for Toronto.
Seeing as the 2022-23 season hasn’t even started, the NHL network should focus on the free agents still available for this season.
I would suggest the NHL network do its research before discussing a team’s salary cap situation. Kyle Dubas and the Toronto Maple Leafs will not have a problem re-sign Bunting or Matthews when the time comes to do so.