Toronto Maple Leafs: Need to Use Cap Raise on Nylander

The National Hockey League commissioner Gary Bettman came out of the Board of Governors meeting on Tuesday with some news about what he expects 2024-25 salary cap and the news will help the Toronto Maple Leafs.

It has been predicted for months now that the Toronto Maple Leafs, along with the rest of the NHL that the cap would rise by $4 Million from the current $83.5 Million next season, but with revenue increasing, it is now expected an additional $200,000 will be allocated to each team with the salary cap being at $87.7 Million.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have to be one of the teams that will benefit the most from this additional money as two of their superstars were due for new contracts after the year.

Auston Matthews relieved a lot of fan’s stress after he signed a four-year extension this past summer that will see an increase of his salary by a little over $1.6 Million from his current contract.

Contract talks with William Nylander are eligibly still ongoing and during the summer there was speculation that general manager Brad Treliving wanted to get a contract somewhere in the $8.5 Million range, while the Swedish-Calgarian was looking more in the eight digit area.

With the recent news of a $4.2 Million raise of the salary, Maple Leafs management will have a bit more room to allocate to a superstar winger that scored 40-goals last year and is on pace to surpass that total.

At this time, the Toronto Maple Leafs have committed just under $53.3 Million to next years cap, leaving nearly $34.4 Million to allocate to fill out the roster and that is before getting rid of Ryan Reaves horrendous $1.35 Million cap hit.

Toronto Maple Leafs Already Have Depth Roles Within Organization

The Toronto Maple Leafs do still need to sign a handful of players, however, most of those spots are in the bottom six, but the organization have players still under team control.  Nicholas Robertson and Noah Gregor are due for new contracts, but likely will see contracts in the $1 Million range, while Fraser Minten, Alex Steeves and Pontus Holmberg can all compete for additional roles at near league minimum contracts.

With the additional cap space, unless the Leafs are getting a top defenseman, Treliving needs to use this additional money he did not expect to have and throw it all at Nylander.

It is a better situation to save money on replacement level role players and use the savings on game breakers like William Nylander.