The Toronto Maple Leafs cap situation is horrible because incoming GM Brad Treliving spent $11 million dollars on 4 x replacement players (Klingberg, Domi, Reaves, Kampf).
However, despite the Toronto Maple Leafs still being nearly $7 million dollars over the salary cap, there is hope for improvement.
Once Matt Murray is gone, the Leafs will only need to move around $3 million to be cap compliment.
TJ Brodie, Calle Jarnkrok, Connor Timmons, Sam Lafferty and Marc Giordano combine to make about $11 million dollars, so there are your candidates for players to move.
The Leafs can solve their cap problems by moving several different combinations of these players out, and signing three players who all offer major upside, and whom all could be had cheaper than expected due to various circumstances.
Of course, it’s entirely possible that the Leafs do nothing but move Brodie and then try to get by by promoting the likes of Topi Niemela and Mikko Kokonen, although their blue-line is already extremely thin.
With the following three players, the Toronto Maple Leafs not only get better, they get more exiting, better offensively and they get tougher to play against.
Here are three players the Leafs should still be pursuing, all of whom have star upside.