With roughly half of the Toronto Maple Leafs roster set to become an RFA/UFA this offseason, there will be lots of changes, however it could stay more similar than you’d think.
Over the past few offseasons, the Toronto Maple Leafs haven’t been shy at letting players walk in free agency. When you have four forwards making up almost 50 percent of the salary cap, you can’t get into a bidding war with other organizations.
For the most part, the team has been right in their decisions to let players walk or have traded them at the right time. Andreas Johnsson, Kasperi Kapanen, Zach Hyman James van Riemsdyk and Connor Brown are just a few examples of players who the team got rid of before their contracts became over-valued.
Even though Zach Hyman is thriving in Edmonton, it was the right move to walk away from him based on his $5.5M AAV salary. For $950K, the Leafs have been able to get similar production out of Michael Bunting, so they’ve done a great job a replacing him for 20 percent of the price.
If you look at the Leafs roster for next year, the team is roughly tied to $72M, with the salary-cap projected to rise to as high as $86.5M. Toronto already has six NHL defenseman signed, so they’re almost set there, but they still need to find a starting goalie if they don’t trust Matt Murray and will need to round out their bottom-six forwards.
With the 2023-24 season being the last year of William Nylander and Auston Matthews’ current contracts, the team will need to capitalize on their lower price-tag because they’re bound for pay-raises and/or could walk in free agency.
Instead of looking to free agency, expect the Leafs to find some talent in-house. Here are three players who could surprisingly return to the Toronto Maple Leafs next year.