Salary Cap: Leafs' 2014-2015 Cap Situation and Strategy

[Ace88*]

Stop making so much sense, Wookie, the folks round these parts can't handle it.



We'll be fine with our cap.

 

[BlueBaron]

I'd say it's fairly obvious that trades need to be made with an eye on the future. Lupul and Franson seem like obvious candidates.

Short term there is no reason to panic because we will send down 2 forwards at least and will have some cap relief there.

 

[Mess]

I'd say it's fairly obvious that trades need to be made with an eye on the future. Lupul and Franson seem like obvious candidates.

Short term there is no reason to panic because we will send down 2 forwards at least and will have some cap relief there.

Two forwards down and 1 Dman up and play with a 22 man roster with one spare forward and one spare Dman and everything is fine in regards to the cap this year as there will be enough wiggle room to cover a few short term injuries throughout the year.

 

[Grant]

With the very little cap space we have, if Rielly has a great year next year and hits a bunch of bonuses that kick in, we are going to lose a TON of cap space for the following year in bonus overages.

Not true, his contract only allows for up to 850k in performance bonuses and we don't know what categories he would have to hit in order to get them.

Some more information on bonuses is found here:
http://www.capgeek.com/faq/how-do-entry-level-contracts-work

I'm assuming Rielly's bonuses would be coming from Schedule A since it limits bonuses to 850k, which is Rielly's performance bonus number.

 

[SeaOfBlue]

I agree with Blue Baron. Unless our management is truly dense, they would do something to fix our cap situation. We aren't like Chicago where we have to trade cap dumps to become compliant. If we traded Franson for Kindl+, we'd have more than enough space to get through the season barring any major injuries, etc. We probably have enough space as it is, but trading Franson would augment that fact. If anything else were to happen, we could try to trade Lupul, Reimer, etc. during the season for a good return and some cap relief.

 

[81Leafs50]

The strategy seems to be to lock up as many mediocre hockey players to long term contracts so we can keep this hit and miss playoff team together for the next 5-7 years.

If Kadri and Bernier are added to the long term signings we currently have, it will mark 11 players signed long term. If Franson is signed, make that 12. And we have used our 2 buyouts already.

Ridiculous, when LA, a team that has won 2 cups, has only 7 long term contracts.

You call our players on long term contracts mediocre but you cant find one guy to replace Phaneuf, Kessel, JVR, or Lupul for less.

4 year deals are not long term deals. 5 or more is a long terms deal. Leafs don't have many of those.

 

[SeaOfBlue]

Whether we could get more out of trades at the deadline or not, it doesn't matter to me. Franson at the least should be traded before hand, because he's not going to get more than I offer unless a team is truly dumb. If they are dumb at the deadline, they are dumb before the deadline. Just to give this thread some piece of mind:

FORWARDS
James Van Riemsdyk ($4.250m) / Tyler Bozak ($4.200m) / Phil Kessel ($8.000m)
Joffrey Lupul ($5.250m) / Nazem Kadri ($2.900m) / David Clarkson ($5.250m)
Leo Komarov ($2.950m) / Petri Kontiola ($1.100m) / Matt Frattin ($0.800m)
Daniel Winnik ($1.300m) / Mike Santorelli ($1.500m) / Troy Bodie ($0.600m)
David Booth ($1.100m) / Peter Holland ($0.775m) /
DEFENSEMEN
Dion Phaneuf ($7.000m) / Jake Gardiner ($4.050m)
Morgan Rielly ($0.894m) / Stephane Robidas ($3.000m)
Jakub Kindl ($2.400m) / Roman Polak ($2.750m)
Korbinian Holzer ($0.788m) /
GOALTENDERS
Jonathan Bernier ($2.900m)
James Reimer ($2.300m)
BUYOUTS
Mike Komisarek ($0.000m)
Mikhail Grabovski ($0.000m)
Tim Gleason ($0.833m)
RETAINED SALARIES (0.29% of upper limit)
Carl Gunnarsson ($0.200m—6.35%)
BONUS OVERAGE
$512,500
------
CAPGEEK.COM TOTALS (follow @capgeek on Twitter)
(estimations for 2014-15)
SALARY CAP: $69,000,000; CAP PAYROLL: $67,602,500; BONUSES: $850,000
CAP SPACE (23-man roster): $1,397,500

14 forwards, 7 defensemen, 2 goalies, 1 trade:


Jakub Kindl
Conditional 4th round pick 2015 (becomes 2nd if Franson is resigned)
Conditional 7th round pick 2016 (if McLaren is resigned or plays 30 games or more in 2014-2015)


Cody Franson
Frazer McLaren

Simple trade with two conditional picks. If Franson is resigned, it gives us a 2nd round pick in a good draft. We get a good bottom pairing guy at ~5th round pick value right now but could increase his value overtime and has a good contract if he does so (3 years, 2.4 mill AAV). 7th round pick that will likely not be converted, but it gets rid of McLaren. Nice little add on to the deal. This is already an overpayment for Franson, but it's a realistic deal and it works for us. Considering Kindl could bring us another couple of picks in later drafts if he has a rebound, this is a deal that is sided towards us. Do this if we need the cap, or we can just wait until the deadline and potentially trade him for a 1st round pick at a super premium. Either is a good deal for us.

 

[Pholus]

Jakub Kindl
Conditional 4th round pick 2015 (becomes 2nd if Franson is resigned)
Conditional 7th round pick 2016 (if McLaren is resigned or plays 30 games or more in 2014-2015)


Cody Franson
Frazer McLaren

Is there something specific you like about Kindl? Just wondering because he seems to be the guy you want to trade Franson for, would be interested to hear your reasoning. From a Leafs point of view, I like this trade, moving out Franson for a guy on a longer term deal at lower cap hit, getting rid of McLaren, and adding some draft picks? Yes please, although as you mentioned it is definitely an overpayment on Detroit's part. If they really wanted a RD who could play pp, Jamie McBain is a ufa who should come cheap (although they already have too many dmen so I could understand why they would want to trade for a RD instead).

 

[rrc1967]

There will probably be lots of references to the CBA in this thread so I'll pre-emptively point to the download link for the CBA http://cdn.agilitycms.com/nhlpacom/PDF/NHL_NHLPA_2013_CBA.pdf Warning; it's an 11.1 megabyte PDF file.

Basically, a rash of short-term injuries could put the Leafs in cap trouble. Here's the situation.

• Cap Geek shows the Leafs with 23 players signed and only $360,000 cap room
• Teams must ice at least 20 players for each game.
• If 4 players are short-term injured simultaneously, Toronto would have to call up somebody to make the limit.
• Did I mention that the league minimum salary is $550,000? OOPS

There is a "Roster Emergency Exception" (CBA Section 50.10(e)) and a "Goaltender Exemption" (CBA Section 16.13), but neither one allows signing a really good player. And I'm sure that the league will carefully monitor any declarations of LTIR (10 games / 24 days threshold). Assuming sanity on the part of Leafs management, they need to act to give themselves breathing room. Possible options include "salary dump" trades and playing most of the season with a 21-man roster. E.g. send down Orr, and even if he's claimed on waivers, nothing of value will have been lost.

it's tight again, which gives the team very little wiggle room on optional player sits if they are under performing - again putting carlyle in the spot of not having any options if a player just simply needs to be sat.

 

[Mess]

Most of the teams that are rebuilding generally finish near the bottom of the standings but also usually spend closer to the cap floor than the cap ceiling.

Teams like Florida and NYI needed to spend $19-20 mil on players just to reach the Cap floor and still have >$15 mil in free cap space after free spending on players.

Toronto while finishing just 5 points ahead of the NYI in last years standings needed to bring in 1/2 a dozen bargain bin contracts < $1.5 mil just to ice team while spending to the cap ceiling. While NYI bring in Grabovski, Kulemin and Halak paying over $14 mil a season just to reach the cap floor.

Cap management is certainly something that Toronto needs to improve on significantly in order to compete for the Cup.

 

[LeafalCrusader]

With 23 players that's 3 extra players who can fill in for short term injuries. If a long term injury happens we can put that guy on LTIR and call somebody up. I'm not that worried.

 

[SeaOfBlue]

Is there something specific you like about Kindl? Just wondering because he seems to be the guy you want to trade Franson for, would be interested to hear your reasoning. From a Leafs point of view, I like this trade, moving out Franson for a guy on a longer term deal at lower cap hit, getting rid of McLaren, and adding some draft picks? Yes please, although as you mentioned it is definitely an overpayment on Detroit's part. If they really wanted a RD who could play pp, Jamie McBain is a ufa who should come cheap (although they already have too many dmen so I could understand why they would want to trade for a RD instead).

Well it's a trade that Detroit fans support (Franson and a 4th, but I thought a little overpayment would be in order to get the Nonis factor added) so I thought it would be a good basis deal, especially since it makes sense in all areas. I'm not saying it has to be THIS trade, but I would approve it if it happens and it's better than changing it up and risk potential flaming.

 

[glue]

Most of the teams that are rebuilding generally finish near the bottom of the standings but also usually spend closer to the cap floor than the cap ceiling.

Teams like Florida and NYI needed to spend $19-20 mil on players just to reach the Cap floor and still have >$15 mil in free cap space after free spending on players.

Toronto while finishing just 5 points ahead of the NYI in last years standings needed to bring in 1/2 a dozen bargain bin contracts < $1.5 mil just to ice team while spending to the cap ceiling. While NYI bring in Grabovski, Kulemin and Halak paying over $14 mil a season just to reach the cap floor.

Cap management is certainly something that Toronto needs to improve on significantly in order to compete for the Cup.

Well said..not sure how someone can argue with that..we've really managed our cap horribly..with Dubas on board I'm thinking we'll see some improvements there.

 

[DD03]

Whether we could get more out of trades at the deadline or not, it doesn't matter to me. Franson at the least should be traded before hand, because he's not going to get more than I offer unless a team is truly dumb. If they are dumb at the deadline, they are dumb before the deadline. Just to give this thread some piece of mind:

FORWARDS
James Van Riemsdyk ($4.250m) / Tyler Bozak ($4.200m) / Phil Kessel ($8.000m)
Joffrey Lupul ($5.250m) / Nazem Kadri ($2.900m) / David Clarkson ($5.250m)
Leo Komarov ($2.950m) / Petri Kontiola ($1.100m) / Matt Frattin ($0.800m)
Daniel Winnik ($1.300m) / Mike Santorelli ($1.500m) / Troy Bodie ($0.600m)
David Booth ($1.100m) / Peter Holland ($0.775m) /
DEFENSEMEN
Dion Phaneuf ($7.000m) / Jake Gardiner ($4.050m)
Morgan Rielly ($0.894m) / Stephane Robidas ($3.000m)
Jakub Kindl ($2.400m) / Roman Polak ($2.750m)
Korbinian Holzer ($0.788m) /
GOALTENDERS
Jonathan Bernier ($2.900m)
James Reimer ($2.300m)
BUYOUTS
Mike Komisarek ($0.000m)
Mikhail Grabovski ($0.000m)
Tim Gleason ($0.833m)
RETAINED SALARIES (0.29% of upper limit)
Carl Gunnarsson ($0.200m—6.35%)
BONUS OVERAGE
$512,500
------
CAPGEEK.COM TOTALS (follow @capgeek on Twitter)
(estimations for 2014-15)
SALARY CAP: $69,000,000; CAP PAYROLL: $67,602,500; BONUSES: $850,000
CAP SPACE (23-man roster): $1,397,500

14 forwards, 7 defensemen, 2 goalies, 1 trade:


Jakub Kindl
Conditional 4th round pick 2015 (becomes 2nd if Franson is resigned)
Conditional 7th round pick 2016 (if McLaren is resigned or plays 30 games or more in 2014-2015)


Cody Franson
Frazer McLaren

Simple trade with two conditional picks. If Franson is resigned, it gives us a 2nd round pick in a good draft. We get a good bottom pairing guy at ~5th round pick value right now but could increase his value overtime and has a good contract if he does so (3 years, 2.4 mill AAV). 7th round pick that will likely not be converted, but it gets rid of McLaren. Nice little add on to the deal. This is already an overpayment for Franson, but it's a realistic deal and it works for us. Considering Kindl could bring us another couple of picks in later drafts if he has a rebound, this is a deal that is sided towards us. Do this if we need the cap, or we can just wait until the deadline and potentially trade him for a 1st round pick at a super premium. Either is a good deal for us.

Rather not trade within the division and help a team out like Detroit.. Specially for some one who some fans call their worst defenseman.

 

[Faltorvo]

What is more concerning is that Leafs will be in the same position next year..

The cap goes up by $5 mil .. .Kadri and Bernier become RFA's and each get raises on next contracts using up the majority if not all that new cap space.

Gleason buyout goes up by $1 mil extra from $833k to $1.83k and Rielly bonuses earned on a good season could easily cost the Leafs another $1.mil. Leafs are carrying over $512,500 this year already based on bonus carried forward.

Which means regardless how all the bargain bin <$1.5 mil players do this year they will essentially all be UFAs next year with little room to sign and keep them if they have good years ie Raymond last season.

So the following year Leafs will need to go bargain shopping again to fill out the roster or promote from within. (baring dumping a big contract ie Lupul for pick etc.)

So Leafs are perpetually trapped in this cap hole they created through poor cap management and are struggling to even make the playoffs with this roster.

and Franson as a pending UFA will be walking out the door as total lost asset.

 

[Faltorvo]

Leafs have been in the bottom 10 overall in 6 of the past 7 years. That is how we have players like Schenn (now JVR) Kadri, Rielly and Nylander.

What would you call 7th, 7th, 2nd, 9th, 5th & 8th last overall in the last 7 years?.

There is an exception to every rule and a 48 game season the only exception from being a bottom 10 team. Team returned to bottom 10 status again last year, and they have a $500k carryover cap hit from last year to finish 8th last. How do we know Leafs wouldn't have missed the playoffs in a full season, as last year should have taught us that collapses happen near the end.

Leafs cap management directly responsible for the outcomes because of who they invested their money in and for how much.

ummm and the epic collapse the season before the lock out also, but the huggers you know don't care

 

[The Winter Soldier]

You call our players on long term contracts mediocre but you cant find one guy to replace Phaneuf, Kessel, JVR, or Lupul for less.

4 year deals are not long term deals. 5 or more is a long terms deal. Leafs don't have many of those.

Not sure what else you want me to call them, would you say they are mediocre compared to Toews, Kane, Sharp, Hossa, Keith, Crawford, and Seabrook?

 

[knorthern knight]

Question; who's waiver-exempt on the Leafs, besides Reilly? I can see some shuttling back-and-forth during off days when there are 3-day breaks in the Leafs' schedule. You may ask if they're that desparate now. My response is that they need to bank up cap space to make sure that they don't end up that desparate later in the season.

 

[Mess]

Question; who's waiver-exempt on the Leafs, besides Reilly? I can see some shuttling back-and-forth during off days when there are 3-day breaks in the Leafs' schedule. You may ask if they're that desparate now. My response is that they need to bank up cap space to make sure that they don't end up that desparate later in the season.

Good idea however only Rielly is waiver exempt on the current roster and he is unlikely to be sent up and down to save cap space on off days.

Even Holland,Ashton and Frattin are not waiver exempt, only Marlies on their ELC like Granberg, Leivo etc would be exempt.

 

[BlueBaron]

Good idea however only Rielly is waiver exempt on the current roster and he is unlikely to be sent up and down to save cap space on off days.

Even Holland,Ashton and Frattin are not waiver exempt, only Marlies on their ELC like Granberg, Leivo etc would be exempt.

Our number 7 D I would think.

 

[HoweHullOrr]

I'm not sure how a team that finished in the playoffs one short season ago is considered a perpetual bottom ten team...

what would you call a team that finished bottom ten 6 of the last 7 seasons ?

Leafs have been in the bottom 10 overall in 6 of the past 7 years. That is how we have players like Schenn (now JVR) Kadri, Rielly and Nylander.

What would you call 7th, 7th, 2nd, 9th, 5th & 8th last overall in the last 7 years?.

There is an exception to every rule and a 48 game season the only exception from being a bottom 10 team. Team returned to bottom 10 status again last year, and they have a $500k carryover cap hit from last year to finish 8th last. How do we know Leafs wouldn't have missed the playoffs in a full season, as last year should have taught us that collapses happen near the end.

Leafs cap management directly responsible for the outcomes because of who they invested their money in and for how much.

Not perpetual lol.

Today's english lesson.

Perpetual: occurring repeatedly; so frequent as to seem endless and uninterrupted.

Placing in the playoffs in one of the last two seasons, is not what I would call "uninterrupted".

But I know how much you and Mess and a hundred other posters can't help but preach only of criticisms and negatives and never ever look at a single positive. So continue.

Perhaps we should say "consistent" bottom ten team then versus "perpetual"?

 

[SeaOfBlue]

Rather not trade within the division and help a team out like Detroit.. Specially for some one who some fans call their worst defenseman.

There are other options, this is just one that could happen if we really need the cap. They are also just saying that because Kindl wasn't very good last year. Still is a decent player though, especially if we just use him on the bottom line.

 

[HoweHullOrr]

Perhaps we should say "consistent" bottom ten team then versus "perpetual"?

Maybe a comparison to another team that hasn't made the playoffs often over the last number of years is a useful metric?

Colorado has only made the playoffs once in the last 4 years. So have the Leafs

The 1st consideration/factor is the strength of their current roster versus ours.

Then, they have 25 players signed and $2.8 million in cap space remaining. Next year they have $17.6 million of cap space remaining and 19 players signed.

Which team has the better odds of breaking their (consistent) losing ways?

 

[King85Kong]

People are blowing our cap situation and signed players way out of proportion. The only players at this point who are signed for more then three years that would be difficult to trade is Clarkson, Lupul (debatable) and possibly Dion. Most teams have a player or two with a bad contract. When better players come along we can trade our current players. The sky is not falling, everyone can return to their homes.

 

[Faltorvo]

Well said..not sure how someone can argue with that..we've really managed our cap horribly..with Dubas on board I'm thinking we'll see some improvements there.

Dubas has little to do with this.

These cap issues stem from the boards top mandate, the most important thing to them and that's

"just make the playoffs"

It's been this constant fear and mandate on our GMs that has motivated them to so many horrid contracts , the players agents know this issue and have constantly extorted these bad contracts from our GMs. The GM can't risk the team taking a step back by losing a player.

One can only pray that Tim lieweekly in tandem with shenanigans get this board mandate fixed.