The salary-cap is finally rising, but it doesn’t look like it’ll be high enough to truly effect the Toronto Maple Leafs.
During the NHL’s board of governors meetings this week, it was announced that the salary cap is expected to rise to $87.7M next season, which will give the Toronto Maple Leafs an estimated $4.2M more to play with.
As we all know, the Leafs have been victims of the salary-cap for years. Previous GM Kyle Dubas forecasted the cap to rise much earlier than it did, based on the contracts he gave John Tavares, Mitch Marner, William Nylander and Auston Matthews, but unfortunately the pandemic changed everything.
Nobody saw that coming and as a result, the salary-cap stayed flat for probably three or four more years than it should have. The Leafs have still managed to put a successful team on the ice year-after-year, but it’s hard not to think of what could have been if they’d had all the extra cap space they’d envisioned.
Salary Cap Increase Won’t Benefit Toronto Maple Leafs Enough
According to capfriendly.com, Toronto has $34M in projected cap-space next season.
- 7 Forwards ($41.928M)
- Signed: Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, John Tavares, David Kampf, Calle Jarnkrok, Ryan Reaves, Matthew Knies
- Notable UFA/RFA’s: William Nylander, Tyler Bertuzzi, Max Domi, Nick Robertson, Noah Gregor
- 3 Defenseman ($10.6M)
- Signed: Morgan Rielly, Jake McCabe, Connor Timmins
- Notable UFA/RFA’s: TJ Brodie, Mark Giordano, Timothy Liljegren, John Klingberg
- 1 Goaltender ($766K)
- Signed; Joseph Woll
- Notable UFA/RFA’s: Ilya Samsonov
As you can see, the team still has three of their core-four intact, but Nylander, Bertuzzi and Robertson still need to be signed. Robertson is a RFA so his contract shouldn’t hurt the team that much, but Nylander is bound for a huge raise, while Bertuzzi will fetch a similar $5M contract on the open-market next summer.
With $34M in cap-space, the Leafs could sign Nylander to a $10M contract and still have $24M to play with, but they’d still need to sign four forwards, three defenseman and a goalie, which won’t give them a ton of money to upgrade their roster. They’d essentially be in the same boat they are right now, with zero depth, as that doesn’t give them a ton of money to make an impactful move.
However, here’s the real reason why Toronto’s roster won’t be affected much due to the salary-cap increase. It’s because the 2024 UFA class isn’t that good. No offense to these players, but the best free agents available are Steven Stamkos, Sam Reinhart, Jake Guentzel, William Nylander and Ellias Pettersson.
As a result, you may as well just sign Nylander and run it back with the same group because that gives this team the best opportunity to win next year.
The only way where the salary-cap increase is going to help the Leafs is if they finally make a monster trade and that $4.2M increase can help their trade partner absorb the money. They’ll probably never trade Matthews, Marner and/or Tavares, but that’s the only way I can see this increase helping next year.
Unfortunately until Matthews, Marner, Tavares and Nylander’s contracts are off the books, a $4.2M salary increase isn’t enough to have a true impact on the Toronto Maple Leafs, as they need that number to rise into double-digits for it to seriously help.