What the Jake McCabe extension means for the present and future

According to the team, this morning, the Toronto Maple Leafs and Jake McCabe agreed to a five-year deal with an average annual value of 4.51 million.

The 31-year-old is in his third year with the Toronto Maple Leafs with his current deal expiring after this season (Contract details from PuckPedia.com).

Former Leafs general manager Kyle Dubas acquired McCabe around the trade deadline in 2023. He was sent to Toronto with Sam Lafferty, a 2024 fifth-round pick and a 2025 fifth-round pick. In exchange, Toronto sent Pavel Gogolev, Joey Anderson, a first-round pick in 2025, and a second-round pick in 2026 (Trade details from Hockeydb.com).

The Maple Leafs were able to get McCabe's salary retained. That gave the Leafs McCabe with only a cap hit of 2 million.

What it means for the present and the future of the team

For where the team is at right now, I like the deal. Five years is long and I will discuss how this team will look down the road, but for now, Brad Treliving has got some tidy work done here. There were rumours McCabe could get well over 5 million a year and to get a top-four defenseman locked up at 4.5 million a year with the cap going up, you take that.

McCabe was one of my favourite trades Dubas made in his tenure in Toronto. I'm a huge fan of the player, he brings grit on the blue line and isn't useless with the puck like most of the gritty defensemen the Leafs have brought in during the Matthews era.

He is a valuable part of this team and keeping him around is nice.

When it comes to the future, this team's blue line in particular is looking very old.

In four years Tanev will be 38, Oliver Ekman-Larsson will be 37, McCabe will be 35 and Rielly will be 34.

I understand they're in win-now mode, but I'm struggling to see the vision of the future for this team. Matthews will only be 31 in four years and Nylander is locked up as well, so how is this team going to be competitive with this defense core? While there is a lot of time and stuff happens you don't expect, I wonder if this team is thinking at all about the future.

If they were to somehow break the cup curse, then what I just said doesn't matter but I don't see this team as a cup contender right now.

Treliving still needs to make more moves and find a way to improve the forward core or this team could be looking at a rough year. He also needs more from the core four who have been hard to watch through this recent slide the Leafs have been going through.

The McCabe deal is good for now but will be ugly down the line when you're icing a retirement home for your blue line.