With Jake Muzzin on Long-Term Injured Reserve (LTIR), the Toronto Maple Leafs now have a ton of cap-space available to make a trade.
Losing a two-time Stanley Cup winning defenseman was never ideal for the Toronto Maple Leafs, but you have to find the optimism in hardship. Jake Muzzin, when healthy, was a top-four blue-liner who made life difficult on the opposition.
However, the “when healthy” statement is the biggest takeaway.
Over his tenure with the Leafs, by no fault of his own, Muzzin has continued get hurt. A number of the injuries have been freakish, but for whatever reason, he’s continued to suffer serious ailments that have kept him out of the line-up for a long time.
When your second highest paid defenseman is getting hurt all of the time, it puts a huge damper and responsibility on the rest of the team, which is unfair. $5.625M is a large chunk of change for a player who’s often injured and it’s tough to replace his production, when the team is already so tight against the salary cap.
However, now that Muzzin is on LTIR, it seems imminent that he’ll stay there for awhile. It could be all season and it could even be for the rest of his career.
When Mitch Marner mentioned that they want to “make sure that he’s going to be able that he’s going to be able to do whatever he wants to do the rest of his life and enjoy the time with his family, his kids,” that comment made me believe that he could be on the verge of retirement.
Obviously he would never retire before his $5.625M contract for the next two years expires, because he’d be giving up millions for no reason, but he could be left on LTIR until then.
As a result, with his salary cleared up and the potential of Matt Murray staying on LTIR as well, the Toronto Maple Leafs have a lot of salary cap space available. Here are five players they could acquire with that money freed up.