Leafs Salary cap discussions

[HamiltonNHL]

Leafs vs. Habs: how they spend their money.

It seems to me the Leafs hands are tied with big contracts that aren't going so well.
Phaneuf, Clarkson, Lupul ?,
Are other teams spending big bucks with poor ROI ?

Here's the $$$$ breakdown vs. Les Habitants.

Kessel + Phaneuf = 8 mil + 7 mil = $15 million ! Considering the Leafs pay $66 million for the entire roster. Kessel + Phaneuf is just under 1/4 of the entire spending budget.
Is that close to reasonable ?

In the CAP ERA of hockey, it seems big contracts are just too risky.

Phaneuf makes more than Zdeno Chara, BTW.

Are the Habs doing a better job than the Leafs with signing the right players for the right money for the right length of time ?

 

[Namikaze Minato]

Leafs vs. Habs: how they spend their money.

It seems to me the Leafs hands are tied with big contracts that aren't going so well.
Phaneuf, Clarkson, Lupul ?,
Are other teams spending big bucks with poor ROI ?

Here's the $$$$ breakdown vs. Les Habitants.

Kessel + Phaneuf = 8 mil + 7 mil = $15 million ! Considering the Leafs pay $66 million for the entire roster. Kessel + Phaneuf is just under 1/4 of the entire spending budget.
Is that close to reasonable ?

In the CAP ERA of hockey, it seems big contracts are just too risky.

Phaneuf makes more than Zdeno Chara, BTW.

Are the Habs doing a better job than the Leafs with signing the right players for the right money for the right length of time ?

2 contracts signed under 2 different CBA's.

They are about to sign their star player to what sounds like a long term (8 year) high paying (8 million range) deal.

5.25 million is not a "big deal" in todays NHL anymore for a guy who scores at the pace of Lupul. It IS a big deal for a guy who scores at Clarksons, however.

 

[Milan90]

The fact that so many of our players signed contracts this year makes this infographic irrelevant.

 

[dukeofjive]

Its going to change this summer, Markov will want something close to phaneufs 7 million, subban is going to brake the bank.

If by a miracle we get to keep vanek he will be asking a similar contract as kessel.

Thats only 3 guys

 

[Daisy Jane]

Lupul's contract = tradeable.
Everyone and their dog knows Clarkson's is awful.

Kessel would be getting that on the open Market as would Phaneuf (not saying I would have given Phaneuf that contract).

Subban is going to get paid, and paid richly. As well as Patches if he comes close to equaling the season he is. and so on and so forth.

 

[TheScruffington]

The Habs are doing a much better job at managing the cap than the Leafs are. Which is pretty sad really. You would think that the team with the most money would be able to get the most out of it to build a solid team.

They've spread out their resources instead of concentrating it in one or two players like Toronto. Their centre depth is way better than ours, their bottom six is better, even their D is better despite getting paid less. Part of building a winning team is having some of your roster players outperforming their contracts, and Montreal has a lot of that. A lot of them are due for raises, but if they are given reasonable extensions with reasonable cap hits then they can be a contender for years to come.

I'd be a whole lot more excited about my team's future if I were a Montreal fan.

 

[LyricalLyricist]

The habs aren't doing anything special.

Only thing habs have done is refuse super long term deals even when they were hype. Pacioretty and Price got 6 years and we got lucky with max at 4.5 mil(absolutely awesome).

We still have our overpriced and underperforming players.

I'm sorry to tell you guys but you can sit and look at a million different reasons why your management may or may not have gotten the job done but you guys had a massive losing streak. Teams like montreal and Toronto already have benefit of unlimited management expense and being a cap ceiling team, not a cap floor team. Even if you remove a Clarkson type salary, habs and leafs still spend millions more than a playoff team like Colorado.

Again, only difference is habs don't go nuts with the 8 year deals but let's wait and see what happens with Subban and potentially Vanek before we say habs are that much different...

 

[yoyo999]

The Habs are also considerably better at drafting and player development. The Leafs trade their high picks for players that were high picks in years previous (Peter Holland, Jonathan Bernier, David Bolland, Mikhail Grabovski) because they have to win now.

 

[HamiltonNHL]

The salary cap is going from $65 million this year to $71 million next year (and the 6 years after that).

Considering the raises by Kessel and Phaneuf ... they've eaten up alot of the "$6 million extra" for next year.

 

[HamiltonNHL]

Teams like montreal and Toronto already have benefit of unlimited management expense and being a cap ceiling team, not a cap floor team.

There seems to be very little difference these days from floor to ceiling.
http://www.capgeek.com/payrolls/?charts_year=2013

How much more do the Yankees spend than the Houston Astros ?

 

[Suntouchable13]

With the benefit of hindsight, it looks like a colossal mistake to have re-signed Dion. Leafs were in a tough spot. Do you let him play out his final year of his contract, see how the team finishes the season, then risk losing him for nothing in the summer? Trade him at the deadline with the risk of the team falling out of the playoffs (what happened anyway with Dion)? Or do you re-sign him to that contract? I am not a proponent of making your team weaker if it's sitting in a good spot to make the playoffs, but I wouldn't have hesitated trading him if I knew that I had to re-sign him to the contract that he got.

 

[TheScruffington]

Lupul's contract = tradeable.
Everyone and their dog knows Clarkson's is awful.

Kessel would be getting that on the open Market as would Phaneuf (not saying I would have given Phaneuf that contract).

Subban is going to get paid, and paid richly. As well as Patches if he comes close to equaling the season he is. and so on and so forth.

Lupul's contract is bad because he has had a history of injury problems. He's at least $1M overpaid in my opinion.

And just because Kessel/Phaneuf could fetch big bucks on the free agency market doesn't mean you have to pay them that money. If you expect them to ask for a big raise and long term numbers, and that will hurt your team's cap flexibility and they haven't even proved they can win anything, trade them. I don't like justifying big contracts by saying "oh well they would have gotten that anyways, so it's better we do that than someone else does."

Also Patches is signed until 2019 at $4.5mil per season. Imagine if we had a Pacioretty instead of a Kessel, and an extra $3.5 mil to invest on say another young centre. I'm not saying I'd straight up trade Kessel for Pacioretty, but I'm saying I'd love to have a player of his caliber outperforming their contract. We do have that in JVR, but that's the only example.

The habs aren't doing anything special.

Only thing habs have done is refuse super long term deals even when they were hype. Pacioretty and Price got 6 years and we got lucky with max at 4.5 mil(absolutely awesome).

We still have our overpriced and underperforming players.

You say that's nothing special, but in all honesty by not having a lot of long-term, high cap hit contracts, Montreal has incredible cap flexibility. The overpriced and underperforming players you have like Briere aren't signed to super long term deals and don't have sky-high cap hits.

I'm sorry to tell you guys but you can sit and look at a million different reasons why your management may or may not have gotten the job done but you guys had a massive losing streak.

People say we got eliminated from contention because of the losing streak, and yet we were only really in contention because of two hot streaks. Outside of those two streaks we were average at best.

This team is not built for success.

 

[HamiltonNHL]

Only 8 teams have more than $3 million available in Cap space at the end of this year.
Leafs have $Zero space. Habs too.

http://www.capgeek.com/payrolls/?charts_year=2013

23. Nashville » $4,856,545
24. Buffalo » $6,969,042
25. Edmonton » $7,030,360
26. Ottawa » $7,801,002
27. Calgary » $10,291,255
28. Colorado » $11,629,676
29. N.Y. Islanders » $12,583,569
30. Florida » $13,668,094

 

[LyricalLyricist]

There seems to be very little difference these days from floor to ceiling.
http://www.capgeek.com/payrolls/?charts_year=2013

How much more do the Yankees spend than the Houston Astros ?

Well we have a distinct advantage over many teams. Especially the small market non playoff ones. Teams like TO and MTL should be in playoffs or competing for it every year IMO.

You say that's nothing special, but in all honesty by not having a lot of long-term, high cap hit contracts, Montreal has incredible cap flexibility. The overpriced and underperforming players you have like Briere aren't signed to super long term deals and don't have sky-high cap hits.

People say we got eliminated from contention because of the losing streak, and yet we were only really in contention because of two hot streaks. Outside of those two streaks we were average at best.

This team is not built for success.

Be it as it may players in 5-6 years don't really answer the question of what is going on today. Many players were just signed and/or acquired. This is far from the reason the leafs did not succeed this season.

I think leafs are better than leaf fans think but also very fragile. Montreal often won games they shouldn't have won either.

I honestly believe you're one solid D-man away from being in playoffs. Guys like Phaneuf get too many difficult minutes.

 

[HamiltonNHL]

How much more do the Yankees spend than the Houston Astros ?

=== 2013 Baseball Team Salaries ===
N.Y. Yankees $230,401,445
Boston $157,594,786
Toronto $118,244,039
Houston $27,251,338

source: http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/story/21989238/baseball-payrolls-list

Baseball = Luxury Tax.
Hockey = Salary Cap.

 

[Milan90]

The Habs are doing a much better job at managing the cap than the Leafs are. Which is pretty sad really. You would think that the team with the most money would be able to get the most out of it to build a solid team.

They've spread out their resources instead of concentrating it in one or two players like Toronto. Their centre depth is way better than ours, their bottom six is better, even their D is better despite getting paid less. Part of building a winning team is having some of your roster players outperforming their contracts, and Montreal has a lot of that. A lot of them are due for raises, but if they are given reasonable extensions with reasonable cap hits then they can be a contender for years to come.

I'd be a whole lot more excited about my team's future if I were a Montreal fan.

Montreal's centre depth is absolutely nothing to write home about and the teams are pretty even in terms of centres. We lack a third line centre and they have one, outside of that, every centre on our team is comparable to theirs.

 

[Milan90]

And lol at all of you comparing Patches to Kessel.

You ***** about offering players big deals based on good seasons, and then you cite a guy who's been good but who really only took off when Montreal picked up Vanek. Kessel is someone that's been improving everybody he plays with in the meantime. And now it's "imagine if we had Pacioretty". This is absolutely ****ing pathetic.

 

[jimmycarter]

regardless of the CBA you sign his contract under...phanuef isn't worth $7 / season.

 

[HamiltonNHL]

I honestly believe [The Leafs] are one solid D-man away from being in playoffs. Guys like Phaneuf get too many difficult minutes.

But we got no Cap space.
Who do we cut and who is going to give us this D man ?

I don't think the Leafs are at much of an advantage than the other teams. I think many good players would rather take a pay cut and not play in the Microscope of the Toronto Media.

Same Salary, Twice the hassle = Go elsewhere.


http://www.capgeek.com/mapleleafs
http://www.capgeek.com/canadiens

Next year the Leafs have 12 players on contract, the Habs have 15.
Bruins 19. Canucks 20.
Hawks 20.

12 seems quite low.

 

[Milan90]

We do have cap space. We're getting rid of 2m in buyouts, the cap is going up and we're losing a couple guys to FA this year.

 

[TheScruffington]

Be it as it may players in 5-6 years don't really answer the question of what is going on today. Many players were just signed and/or acquired. This is far from the reason the leafs did not succeed this season.

I think leafs are better than leaf fans think but also very fragile. Montreal often won games they shouldn't have won either.

I honestly believe you're one solid D-man away from being in playoffs. Guys like Phaneuf get too many difficult minutes.

To me, the Leafs aren't succeeding because we have too much cap tied up in wingers. Too many long term contracts. To build a winning team you need to have great cap management and a lot of flexibility. We don't have that lol. The most important positions in the game are centre and D, even goaltending (which isn't a problem for us) and most of our cap is tied up in the wings, which is a problem. More money spent in one position means less money available to spend in another.

And in my opinion we are far more than just one solid D man away from becoming a playoff contender, much less a cup contender.

And lol at all of you comparing Patches to Kessel.

You ***** about offering players big deals based on good seasons, and then you cite a guy who's been good but who really only took off when Montreal picked up Vanek. Kessel is someone that's been improving everybody he plays with in the meantime. And now it's "imagine if we had Pacioretty". This is absolutely ****ing pathetic.

Damn dude, why are you so salty? We have some common ground here in that we all want this team to succeed, we just need to figure out how to get there.

Pacioretty has had a couple of really good seasons now, so he's been pretty consistent. It's not like he's been average, then they got Vanek and now he's amazing. He's been good for awhile. My point is that he's signed at $4.5mil, which is a great deal, just like we have in JVR at $4.2mil. But imagine if we had a top line with 2 great wingers on bargain contracts. That would give us a lot of cap space.

The goal is to have a lot of bargain contracts, spread out your cap, be flexible.

 

[Daisy Jane]

Well we have a distinct advantage over many teams. Especially the small market non playoff ones. Teams like TO and MTL should be in playoffs or competing for it every year IMO.

I think leafs are better than leaf fans think but also very fragile. Montreal often won games they shouldn't have won either.

I honestly believe you're one solid D-man away from being in playoffs. Guys like Phaneuf get too many difficult minutes.

thanks. yah - we're just really salty and grumpy right now. (it doesn't help that no one got fired and/or bought out ) yet. I do agree with you. the Leafs and Montreal should be in the playoffs/competing for it every year. (sigh). hopefully next year.

 

[Milan90]

If he keeps playing like this, he won't be waiting until 2019 to restructure his deal; much like Subban.

Kessel is the better player, and you don't trade someone like that solely because he's making 7.8m instead of 7.1m. Kane will be making virtually the same money as Kessel and they're virtually the same player and none of them are clamoring to trade him. It just irks the **** out of me how Leafs fans never understand exactly what they have until it's gone.

 

[HamiltonNHL]

We do have cap space. We're getting rid of 2m in buyouts, the cap is going up and we're losing a couple guys to FA this year.

Our projected space is Zero. (source: http://www.capgeek.com/payrolls/?charts_year=2013 )

Our locked in players are getting big raises (Kessel, Phaneuf).
We only have 12 players locked in for next year.

We have very little flexibility for next year.

 

[Ari91]

What does it matter how the Leafs spend compared to the Habs? There are teams miles better than both of those teams and are annual Cup contenders and manage the cap better than both the Leafs and Habs - THOSE are the teams that you might want to compare it to get a real sense of asset management. Though we don't really need a breakdown of this to know that the Leafs aren't very good at that.