Maple Leafs sitting on plenty of cap space entering free agency

The Toronto Maple Leafs have crossed a couple of items off their to-do list and in the best possible way. John Tavares is back at $4.38M per season and Matthew Knies is back at $7.75M per season. The duo is back at only $213k more than it cost the Leafs last season. With a rising salary cap, that is an absolute win.

According to PuckPedia, the Maple Leafs are sitting on $5.8M to spend this offseason. The addition of Mattias Maccelli was a good first use of the space available after the Tavares and Knies signings and bringing in Nicolas Roy in the Mitch Marner swap also addressed the Leafs’ need for another center. By the numbers the Leafs have a full roster and don’t need to add any additional players at any position in particular. If they are upgrading, they will also likely want to send players out. Having $5.8M is a pretty good start for looking at upgrades.

The league also allows for a 10 percent overage in the cap up until the start of the season. While going the full 10 percent over seems unlikely, as it creates a lot of work to get back down to that $95.5M ceiling, it is likely that there will be a few players currently on the Leafs roster that could easily be part of the Marlies next year and players like Calle Jarnkrok and David Kampf might be easily moved after their July 1 bonuses are paid (Jarnkrok’s cap hit is $2.1M and Kampf’s $2.4M).  

Without drastically rocking the boat, the Leafs can create over $6M in cap space but would create additional roster holes in the process. Aside from Easton Cowan, the Leafs lack AHL players that seem ready to step in and fill such holes.

The Leafs also find themselves in a comfortable situation for next summer. Anthony Stolarz represents the only significant free agent that will need to be dealt with, and the salary cap will be increasing to $104M. That affords the Leafs the opportunity to comfortably swing for the fences this year without jeopardizing what they could do next summer (for example, they could still afford a significant offer to Connor McDavid.)