As the NHL world holds its collective breath to find out where superstar 40-ish point guy Jack Roslovic signs (it is August after all) the idea has been floated by Elliotte Friedman that the Maple Leafs are needing to move some money around first.
To clarify, this isn’t necessarily true, the Leafs can comfortably add to their roster at any time, and if they do need to move out or around, they certainly have options.
The benefit of the doubt is given to Elliotte Friedman on this who absolutely knows how the salary cap works and is likely combining the two thoughts of the Leafs interest in Jack Roslovic with their desire to find new homes for their abundance of depth forwards. Still, it’s an opportunity to talk about how the Leafs can spend on Roslovic (or even aim higher) in the coming days.
The most reason why the Leafs don’t need to be concerned about moving money out yet is the 10% salary cap overage that is allowed for up until the finalized opening day roster is required. The Maple Leafs have $1.9M available even before looking at the overage, but another $9,550,000 is there to spend as well. The challenge being that the more you spend over that, the harder it is to get back down but using Roslovic as an example and considering the peak amount of money anyone should be spending on him is around $4M AAV, the Leafs would at best have to clear $2.1M of cap space (or one Calle Jarnkrok) to make the money work.
Trading a player like Jarnkrok or Kampf or McMann or Domi or Robertson or whoever after acquiring Roslovic also makes a bit more sense rather than doing it prior, as taking Roslovic off the market potentially ups the interest in the players that the Leafs will be flooding the market with. I’m sure you could just as easily say it’s beneficial for the Leafs to trade a forward to one of the teams pursuing Roslovic and eliminate one of the top bidders on him, making him a more affordable acquisition but that requires at least two NHL GMs thinking proactively and that seems like a stretch.
Let’s say the Leafs bring in Roslovic or a similar $4M AAV range forward but don’t have any luck moving a player off the Leafs roster. That isn’t exactly the end of the world either. That will put the Leafs at 24 players and around $2M over the cap. The reality there is pretty simple but not necessarily a popular one with the players impacted. Presumably the Leafs can just waive David Kampf and Calle Jarnkrok to gain the necessary roster and cap space.
There is some potential for a final contract year player like Jarnkrok to be claimed and if I was a rival GM I definitely would, but Kampf easily clears based on the amount of term, signing bonus, and trade restrictions attached to him. The way that Kampf might be claimed is that if there is a team in the league who is interested in him, but Kampf has them on his no trade list, they can pick him up for nothing and he’ll be obligated to reluctantly report there. (You can assume that Brad Treliving has likely discussed the waivers option with Kampf or his agent in regard to how flexible he should be with his no trade list.)
For the sake of argument, say that Kampf and Jarnkrok clear waivers, the Leafs still gain $2,300,000 ($1,150,000 each) by demoting them to the AHL. More than enough to bring in a decent forward and it comes with the added bonus of organization depth (disgruntled depth but depth nevertheless.) The path to cap compliance is an easy one when you don’t consider the fact that these are people we’re talking about.
There is another benefit to the wait and see approach and that is the reality that injuries happen.
We’re already seeing it in Florida where they aren’t exhibiting a sense of urgency in getting to cap compliance because they are likely starting the year with Matthew Tkachuk on the LTIR. They are acknowledging that by the time Tkachuk is ready to return they are probably now in a situation where other injuries will have occurred, and they will be able to activate him by placing someone else on LTIR and so goes the cycle over an 82 game season until the wonderful freedom (at least for one more season) of the playoffs.
The Leafs can just as easily bank on that reality in the preseason and avoid overcommitting to depleting their depth prematurely.
There are still hitches in all of this but not so much from the salary side of things but rather the overall roster construction.
The Leafs seem to really like the idea of Philippe Myers as a reserve defenceman on the Leafs. If they want him and Henry Thrun, thinning the ranks at forward would require another cut.
The Leafs also may have a specific design in mind for their reserve forwards and want Michael Pezzetta there or Easton Cowan could potentially play his way into the lineup based on the merit of his training camp and preseason. Reality is that Pezzetta as forward depth and Cowan as a waivers eligible player won’t hold things up much, neither would Myers or Thrun and the benefit of adding players higher up in the lineup is worth the risk at the bottom of the lineup card.
With over 20 teams having over $2M of cap space still available at this point in the summer makes it likely that players can be moved with ease and there isn’t much reason to hesitate on adding where the Leafs can. It’s just a matter of making sure that if the Leafs are going to add with the intention of subtracting, that the player they are bringing in is worth the fallout.