TORONTO — You won’t be getting an apology from Kyle Dubas.
To any of the cashflow-challenged, smaller-market teams who don’t like the way the Toronto Maple Leafs flex their financial muscle come contract time, the general manager says this: Deal with it.
Toronto’s unrivalled ability to front-load contracts with hefty signing bonuses helped secure new deals for Kasperi Kapanen and Andreas Johnsson on Friday. Those were signed before either player could test the waters for an offer sheet and came in at a reasonable $6.6-million in total — tremendous value when you consider that it’s only a hair more than the since-departed Patrick Marleau would have cost them next season.
Had the Leafs not been comfortable forking over exactly 65 per cent of both deals in July 1 bonus payments, they likely would have had more difficulty getting them done so quickly and at such competitive annual values.
Rivals will look on with envy … or something worse.
However, in Dubas’s eyes, it’s no different than the Florida-based teams trumping up their favourable tax status when chasing free agents or some of the NHL’s smaller-market clubs boasting about their low cost of living.
“We’re pretty fortunate in terms of the revenue that we’re able to draw in,” he said. “So I think for us to sit back and have the taxation argument used against us, but then not to be able to use any advantages that we have would be foolish on our part. I hear people bicker about it and make comments about it, but other teams aren’t apologizing for using taxation or cost of living to aid their argument.
“So I don’t think we should apologize either. And we won’t.”