Flat Cap, Has it been good-bad or indifferent for The Leafs?

[The Iceman]

I got into a debate with a buddy about this.

On the surface the flat cap has obviously left the team with little $$$ to spend.

At the same time it has pinched other teams and allowed The Leafs to fill out their roster with low cost players that would otherwise be getting paid more. These are the players the Leafs need to fill the roster with.
You know regardless Dubas would be up against the cap.

What is your take, has the flat cap helped, hurt or had no real adverse affect on the roster?

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[WTFMAN99]

Hurt, without a doubt.

 

[ITM]

Toronto can outspend most clubs. It is an exceptional tool to have at our disposal.

I don't see Dubas' ability to mine low cost depth as being compromised by more money to spend. If anything, he'd still find that depth while being able to supplement our most pressing needs with players that are of known quality.

It's hurt us.

 

[Mickey Marner]

It's a flat cap for everyone.

 

[GardinerTheForward]

It’s summer.

 

[ACC1224]

Is there a team it's hurt more?

 

[Dekes For Days]

It's unquestionably hurt, more than probably any other team.

We've maneuvered it quite well though.

 

[Jimmy Firecracker]

Bad by a country mile. It was a perfect cavalcade of signing our core players to big time money contracts only to find out that the expected cap growth wouldn’t occur. We didn’t even get one year with Matthews and Marner on their new deals before the league shut down and nixed any idea of cap expansion. Even just one off-season cap increase before COVID would’ve been huge.

 

[Sypher04]

It's a flat cap for everyone.

Technically true, but it’d be naive to think all teams have been equally affected by it.

 

[Shooter2x]

GOOD

I keep saying flat cap ensures the league can't keep up with the growth in matthews marner and nylander.


just get a GM who can finish the deal

 

[TheRumble]

Completely screwed us over but the progression of Matthews, Marner and Nylander kept the team above water.

I think if the cap was $90 million as it was projected to be prior to covid:

- We'd have a long term solution in net
- Hyman probably stays. He was willing to offer a hometown discount on AAV but wanted term for it. It's a lot easier to swallow a bad contract with term if the cap is $90 million vs $82.
- I think one of either Johnsson, Kapanen stays as well. Both were cap casualties. I lean towards Johnsson. He was a lot more versatile than Kapanen while he was here.
- Bunting also likely stays more than two years. He's gone next year if he has a 50 point season or better which he almost certainly will have playing next to Marner and Matthews.

 

[Buds17]

Rising cap > flat cap > falling cap. Regardless, the team will assuredly spend to the cap's upper limit. A rising cap should also theoretically mean that players can increase their contractual ask when eligible for renewal.

 

[Stephen]

It's been terrible. There's no reason why this club needs to play Moneyball.

 

[leafsfan5]

It's been awful and hurt us more than any team in the league. But we also bear some fault for overpaying our top guys and allowing a possible situation like this to hurt us.

Some leaf luck here, the worst possible scenario happened. The f***ing first pandemic in a century came at the exact time we didn't want

 

[htpwn]

It's a flat cap for everyone.

Yeah, but we signed our big guns to big ticket deals right before the pandemic cap freeze.

Almost every other team benefited from cap inflation to shrink the % of cap taken up by their best players.

(That said, three years in, it is probably starting to balance out. Because the top UFAs have continued commanding and getting big contracts, the mid- and lower-tier guys are getting squeezed, which has helped us compensate somewhat).

 

[Doubledose]

It's bad because our big signings happened before the freeze.
We expected those deals to begin looking better but instead everything just stopped

 

[Anthrax442]

Cap has been bad for us period. Big market teams are being punished for Buttman's ineptitude.

 

[Hoglund4MvP]

Flat cap is responsible for us having 8 mil in playoff loser depth kerfoot Engvall holl and an additional 5ish something mil in a still good but can drop any second dman?

We also could have had impact players through trade if we didn't throw away assets on Marleau foligno and mrazek. Without Marleau and Foligno we probably could have made Hampus Lindholm or equivalent if you don't personally like lindholm type of addition.

Flat cap is responsible for not recognizing players like Marchment and Moore are the type of depth you need to surround your core with ? Who trades Moore after seeing him put Chara on his ass in the playoffs.

Flat cap forced us to think a real 4th line isn't required in today's NHL?

Flat cap isn't holding this team back. It's just one rookie gm and his rookie / mediocre coach killing our chances.

 

[horner]

I got into a debate with a buddy about this.

On the surface the flat cap has obviously left the team with little $$$ to spend.

At the same time it has pinched other teams and allowed The Leafs to fill out their roster with low cost players that would otherwise be getting paid more. These are the players the Leafs need to fill the roster with.
You know regardless Dubas would be up against the cap.

What is your take, has the flat cap helped, hurt or had no real adverse affect on the roster?

The cap going means top players would want more .
You would still have player at the bottom on friendly deals.

 

[Nineteen67]

Its hurt the nhl aged veteran in search of Cup more

 

[Ianturnedbull]

I got into a debate with a buddy about this.

On the surface the flat cap has obviously left the team with little $$$ to spend.

At the same time it has pinched other teams and allowed The Leafs to fill out their roster with low cost players that would otherwise be getting paid more. These are the players the Leafs need to fill the roster with.
You know regardless Dubas would be up against the cap.

What is your take, has the flat cap helped, hurt or had no real adverse affect on the roster?

I disagree. You need to have stars, middle class player's, and prospects to round out your team.

The flat cap has hurt this team because TOR doesn't resemble this at all.

 

[AvroArrow]

Horrible. Especially because the league uses our money to help our rivals sign their players. We signed our top guys with the expectation of the cap rising, it didn't and it has massively f***ed us.

 

[Recipe Unlimited]

Yeah it hurt the Leafs cap structure a little bit, since all of their core sans Rielly was locked up 2 years before the flat cap. I think the Leafs would have been slightly better off if the cap kept rising - they probably would have been able to keep 1, maybe 2 of the players they actually couldn't afford (e.g. Kapanen, Johnsson, Campbell or Hyman). That doesn't seem like a huge deal, but considering how close they were to beating the Habs and Lightning, it could have been the difference between a first round exit or something much better...

 

[DuklaNation]

Having high payroll works in MLB, so why wouldn't it work in other leagues. It has seriously hampered Leafs' potential success and elevated other teams. There are options to improve this. I don't why anyone would argue otherwise. Honestly, do Leafs fans feel happy about subsidizing other teams that have done better? Seems like an outrageous business model that takes advantage of team loyalty.

 

[Kurtz]

Imo the three teams it's hurt the most:

1. Tampa (Mcdon, Palat, Coleman, Goodrow)
2. Colorado (this year with Kardri and Kuemper)
3. Us (Hyman)