Toronto Maple Leafs fans across the globe should be thrilled about John Tavares' contract, but more changes are needed ASAP.
When the 2024-25 regular season finished, the majority of fans were ready for change. Whether it was letting John Tavares or Mitch Marner walk to free agency, or a trade involving Auston Matthews and William Nylander, it felt like every player was in our hypothetical trade machine. Now that the regular season is over and everyone is seeing clearly again, I think we're all happy that Tavares is back for a low contract of $$4.38M AAV and Marner is set to join another franchise.
With that being said, it is a little scary that Matthews, Nylander and Tavares are back for another season, but based on Tavares contract, it does feel like this is going to be different. It's not the end of the world if Tavares plays 2C but in a perfect world, his salary should allow the team to upgrade at 2C and push Tavares to 3C instead.
Currently with $21M in cap-space (soon to be $13M if Knies signs for $8M which is his projection), the team still needs to improve their roster. If we used the current roster, this is what their forward group would look like right now:
Knies-Matthews-Domi
McMann-Tavares-Nylander
Jarnkrok-Laughton-X
Reaves-Kampf-X
The Leafs defense and goaltending is set pretty well right now, so if they focus all their money towards their forward group they can improve their roster dramatically. They probably won't get rid of all four of these players, but in my opinion, Max Domi, Calle Jarnkrok, Ryan Reaves and David Kampf should all be traded, giving them $9.6M in salary to work with. If they were able to pull that off, below is what their ideal roster would look like.
Knies-Matthews-Cowan
X-X-Nylander
McMann-Tavares-X
X-Laughton-X
In this scenerio, the Leafs need to upgrade their 1RW, 2C, 3RW, 4LW and 4RW, which you could do pretty well with $22.6M. With all of that cap-space, you can go big-game hunting on one of the top free agents like Brad Marchand, Claude Giroux, Patrick Kane or even make a big swing at a trade.
Leafs' Roster Still Needs Improving
In a perfect world, this is the type of roster we should hope the Leafs construct:
Knies-Matthews-Cowan
Marchand-Schenn-Nylander
Domi-Tavares-Robertson
McMann-Laughton-Brown
I do think the team can improve upon this roster, but I also think they want to give themselves a little flexibility for the 2026 UFA class, so this roster does both. They can still have some cap flexibility, while improving their roster with more depth.
As you can see, the hope would be for Easton Cowan to replace Marner on the top-line and add some youth and energy with Knies beside Matthews. The second line would be a killer of a line to play against, as Schenn and Marchand can not only score, but play with grit, while they have elite skill with Nylander being protected by Schenn and Marchand.
The third line could potentially use more defense, but overall it's another sold line that can score. Domi and Robertson have seen flashes together, while Tavares is a true professional who will make both of them better. As for the fourth-line, I'd love to see Steven Lorentz come back but I also like the idea of Connor Brown returning to Toronto and being an impactful player on the fourth line.
This roster would still need to improve but I think this can be a realistic team that Toronto has for the start of the 2025-26 season.