Leafs Salary cap discussions

[hotpaws]

Every Leaf season begins with unbridled optimism, and the only thing that ends up spoiling the party is reality.

I think it pretty easy to see that we're entering year 7 of the current rebuild with a team that is still one of the weakest defensively and that finishes in the bottom 10 and has already handed out big raises to players that lead them to this level of results.

With 12 players and $50 mil locked in of $70 mil cap (or less) this would be a tight situation for a current competitive team to complete its roster with cheaper contracts and retain competitiveness filling 11 spots for Approx. $20 mil. Leafs are in this position with a team that is drafting 8th overall and according to advanced stats one of the worst performing teams, that surrenders among the most goals against and prone to collapse under pressure.

Sure its possible (and almost necessary) to replace Kulemin, Bolland and Raymond all UFAs with Ashton, Holland and D'Amigo on cheaper contracts to offset the leagues top contracts of Kessel and Phaneuf. However is that actually making the team better which is #1 priority or just the necessary moves to comply with the salary cap?

This is the key question isn't it.

It should be a very interesting off season , i don't believe Nonis survives another season if we don't make the playoffs .

 

[TheJet11]

At this point, I'm not sure what kind of value a guy like Lupul would have.

I'd be surprised if we could get a 2nd rounder for him, but if someone came with that offer, I'd be all over it. Any way we can clear $5.25M off the books so we can reallocate it to a #1C or top pairing D man makes perfect sense to me.

I'd love to sign Stastny to be our #1C (with Kessel and JVR), have Bozak be a great #2C, and mix in Kadri at #3C would give us plenty of offense down the middle, and both Stastny and Bozak are solid two-way players. With Kulemin showing that he can handle C duties in a pinch, I'd be just fine with resigning him for $2-3M to play alongside Kadri on the third line.

 

[Trapper]

At this point, I'm not sure what kind of value a guy like Lupul would have.

I'd be surprised if we could get a 2nd rounder for him, but if someone came with that offer, I'd be all over it. Any way we can clear $5.25M off the books so we can reallocate it to a #1C or top pairing D man makes perfect sense to me.

I'd love to sign Stastny to be our #1C (with Kessel and JVR), have Bozak be a great #2C, and mix in Kadri at #3C would give us plenty of offense down the middle, and both Stastny and Bozak are solid two-way players. With Kulemin showing that he can handle C duties in a pinch, I'd be just fine with resigning him for $2-3M to play alongside Kadri on the third line.

My trade suggestion for Lupul would be to Dallas for Trevor Daley.

 

[hotpaws]

How was Gleason under-performing? That guy's the reason we aren't drafting Ekblad. The Leafs were discombobulating and then he stabilized the team, although eventually we still found a way off the rails.

He's under performing based on his salary , i didn't mean he played poorly for the role we asked of him . I also don't see anyone trading for him without giving salary back .

 

[trentmccleary]

Most of these proposals involve re-signing the current Leafs team under the cap.

Wouldn't a better question be: How do you assemble a Stanley Cup contender in the next 4 seasons around these 6 players?

____ - _____ - Kessel
JVR - Bozak - Lupul
____ - _____ - Clarkson

Phaneuf

They're the ones who are signed for 4 years at $34M (approximately 1/2 of a team's cap space). They're the certain parts of the team that you'd have build to a contender around.

FWIW, I don't see Gardiner signing a well below league average salary ($2M) after a 31 pt/21 min a night season.

 

[HamiltonNHL]

Ha ha a little dramatic are we?

Just a tad.
This is HFboards, non ?

The Leafs were a bad team and bad teams simply have to overpay-overterm to attract players like

That's called mortgaging your future in the cap era.
That what loser management does when they should be rebuilding.

Toronto won't jump to contender status by next season. Too many things need to happen that can't all be accomplished in one off-season.

And when Toronto is ready to make the playoffs, Bernier's contract will be up, and he'll command top dollar.

However, if a big ticket player that we need cap room for can and will be created. Just like when we got Phaneuf.

Sure, it's possible.

The Leafs have alot of signing to do.
They also have to find bargains ... as they don't have alot of money to spend per player.
Put in another way, of the signed players ... Toronto must have one of the best teams in the League ... as we have spent amongst the most money per signed player already. Unfortunately, our signed team isn't that good.

That's a bad situation to be in.

It'll be interesting to see the Leafs roster for next year.

 

[HamiltonNHL]

Most of these proposals involve re-signing the current Leafs team under the cap.

Wouldn't a better question be: How do you assemble a Stanley Cup contender in the next 4 seasons around these 6 players?

____ - _____ - Kessel
JVR - Bozak - Lupul
____ - _____ - Clarkson

Phaneuf

They're the ones who are signed for 4 years at $34M (approximately 1/2 of a team's cap space). They're the certain parts of the team that you'd have build to a contender around.

Wouldn't a better question be: How do you assemble a Stanley Cup contender in the next 4 seasons around these 6 players?

Yes. that is the question. (or should be).

The answer should be obvious. It's not possible.

If you take every team in the NHL and assemble the team player by player starting with the highest salaries. Stop when you've hit 1/2 the Cap space. Toronto has the worst team in the league.

 

[Mess]

This is the key question isn't it.

It should be a very interesting off season , i don't believe Nonis survives another season if we don't make the playoffs .

I agree, and with that also comes the slippery slope situation of job preservation by Nonis to trade youth for instant help to WIN NOW, which has been the mission statement of this entire rebuild to date anyways.

Names like Kadri and Gardiner already being mentioned by talk shows TSN, Sportnet analysts as the bait for fueling immediate improvement. These should ideally, for a rebuilding team to be the so called future building blocks, however they become the currency to help make the team more competitive through trade..

When you sign/resign players 27-30 Kessel, Phaneuf, Clarkson, Lupul to big $ long term contracts the goal is to Win Now not continue rebuilding so your path is set and locked in, unless Shanny (unknown factor) allows for a pulling of the plug and Leafs core traded instead if its deemed rotten.

Will be interesting indeed to see how things evolve but we know the starting point in both team competitiveness and salary cap space is not an ideal one but a disadvantage instead.

 

[HamiltonNHL]

Wouldn't a better question be: How do you assemble a Stanley Cup contender in the next 4 seasons around these 6 players?

____ - _____ - Kessel
JVR - Bozak - Lupul
____ - _____ - Clarkson

Phaneuf

#1) Change the Coach. Has to be done.
#2) Get a #1 D.

Bernier is going to leave if we don't find a better defense for him.

 

[Trapper]

#1) Change the Coach. Has to be done.
#2) Get a #1 D.

Bernier is going to leave if we don't find a better defense for him.

Step 1 is easy.
Step 2 is very unlikely. Who do you have to trade for a no. 1 D and more importantly who is available? Also if you get an established no. 1 we don't have the cap because he will surely make as much or more than Phaneuf. Phaneuf along with Clarkson and Lupul take up way to much cap. Also you don't have a no. 1 C in your lineup and the wingers are very defensively poor. This team is built to tread water. Eventually you tire and the whole body sinks.

 

[TheScruffington]

It is equally likely that the Leafs are going to re-sign Kadri at league minimum and Vanek will sign with us for $1.5M for 8 years.

I would much rather invest money in centermen than I would in wingers. I don't think Kadri's going to ask for anything north of maybe $4.5M. If he does, I'd look to deal him. I'd look to deal him anyway just to see what the return from him would be. The ideal situation is to keep him though.

Subban is not signing anything even remotely resembling a "reasonable" contract. Neither is Vanek, and they're already going to have a hard enough time keeping their bread-and-butter guys like Gionta on reasonable salary.

Well, Subban has earned the right to ask for a big contract. He's great, he's young, he is not prone to injury, he won a Norris, and he's proved he can perform in the playoffs and has already been a part of the core that has had multiple consecutive playoff appearances, including making the ECF and winning several other playoff rounds. I'm only a fan of giving long term contracts to players who meet certain criteria, and Subban meets it for me. I might hesitate if he's asking for north of $6.5M though.

I just love how people make comparisons against other teams that they "think" are well structured/built and really, they have not a hot-damn-clue about it...

They're built better than we are. The results speak for themselves.

 

[Ricky Bobby]

Just a tad.
This is HFboards, non ?


That's called mortgaging your future in the cap era.
That what loser management does when they should be rebuilding.


And when Toronto is ready to make the playoffs, Bernier's contract will be up, and he'll command top dollar.


Sure, it's possible.

The Leafs have alot of signing to do.
They also have to find bargains ... as they don't have alot of money to spend per player.
Put in another way, of the signed players ... Toronto must have one of the best teams in the League ... as we have spent amongst the most money per signed player already. Unfortunately, our signed team isn't that good.

That's a bad situation to be in.

It'll be interesting to see the Leafs roster for next year.

Leafs should be spending to the cap every year. We aren't the Islanders or Panthers who just try to spend to the league minimum.

Bringing in vets on short term contracts ensures youngsters are developed patiently as well as being cost controlled for their 2nd or 3rd contracts. Youngsters need to be groomed not just handed key minutes on a losing team like say Buffalo was trying to do at the start of this year well risking ruining their prospects development. We didn't have many youngsters that deserved promotions for a long time. We're starting to get there but a lot of our secondary youngsters like Granberg, Leivo, Percy, McKegg could still use even more AHL seasoning.

Handing out 5 or 7 year terms to guys like Komisarek or Clarkson was idiotic.

However, adding in vets on short term deals of no more than 3 years can be a good thing. Even a player like Connolly bought Kadri development time, or it can give us another player to deal for extra assets like Beauchemin or we can net a pick + young player by taking on a cap dump like say Lombardi did.

Bernier is just 1 contract. If he earns a big raise then clearly he performed.

For the record my opinion is Toronto has to many holes to fix just this off-season to take a major leap forward. They clearly misjudged where the team was at last off-season when acquiring Bolland + handing out the Clarkson contract.

The cap will go continue to rise and now we've got Kessel + Phaneuf locked in well there comparable players over the next few seasons will continue to get even higher salaries then them.

I believe the Leafs should be putting a major emphasis on a 2 or more likely 3 year plan. We simply have to many holes to try and fill in one off-season. With UFAs the focus needs to be on short term like how we got Raymond, CMac. The other major focus needs to be reloading on extra picks, prospects, young players. We simply need more assets in the young range. However to get anything worthwhile in return this will require dealing out players that people like but who aren't part of that 2 or 3 year plan because of age, contract situation or even position such as Gunnarson, Lupul, Gleason and potentially Kadri (depending if management views as a long term piece/big cap hit worthy) between this off-season and next.

This team simply needs to get back to recycling assets like we did with Versteeg, Kaberle, Beauchemin instead of having a playoffs or bust mentality and losing assets like Grabo, CMac, etc. for nothing.

In the past 24 months we've added JVR, Rielly, Bernier as key long term pieces + some other interesting pieces like Gauthier, 8th overall this draft, Holland. The focus needs to be adding even more young assets to go along with them. Not all of these pieces will pan out but creating depth will eventually allow us to pull off a big trade down the road when another team is in a cap crunch (like how we got Versteeg, Bolland, Bernier for a combination of depth pieces + picks).

I'm not overly worried about our cap situation because I'm simply more focused on the long term and I don't see pieces like say Lupul at 5.25 in that plan or Gleason at a 4 million cap hit but with only 2 years left on his deal as part of it.

 

[Mess]

Step 1 is easy.
Step 2 is very unlikely. Who do you have to trade for a no. 1 D and more importantly who is available? Also if you get an established no. 1 we don't have the cap because he will surely make as much or more than Phaneuf. Phaneuf along with Clarkson and Lupul take up way to much cap. Also you don't have a no. 1 C in your lineup and the wingers are very defensively poor. This team is built to tread water. Eventually you tire and the whole body sinks.

That is the reason behind the epic collapses of 2012 and 2014 and a current poorly assembled team at present.

Which with limited cap space and major changes needed to repair combined with long term contracts with limited NTC clauses restricting trade movement we are not in an ideal situation.

 

[hotpaws]

I agree, and with that also comes the slippery slope situation of job preservation by Nonis to trade youth for instant help to WIN NOW, which has been the mission statement of this entire rebuild to date anyways.

Names like Kadri and Gardiner already being mentioned by talk shows TSN, Sportnet analysts as the bait for fueling immediate improvement. These should ideally, for a rebuilding team to be the so called future building blocks, however they become the currency to help make the team more competitive through trade..

When you sign/resign players 27-30 Kessel, Phaneuf, Clarkson, Lupul to big $ long term contracts the goal is to Win Now not continue rebuilding so your path is set and locked in, unless Shanny (unknown factor) allows for a pulling of the plug and Leafs core traded instead if its deemed rotten.

Will be interesting indeed to see how things evolve but we know the starting point in both team competitiveness and salary cap space is not an ideal one but a disadvantage instead.

Burke lead us down this path to no where and unfortunately Nonis continued to follow it which has left us with a flawed team who's core is in it's prime and unable to even get us into the playoffs .

Since we had few expendable assets of worth Nonis starting trading picks and the next course of action would seem to be trading the kids with value ( Kads/Gards ) in an effort to elevate this team into playoffs in the near future . This i believe not end well and after a few short playoff appearances the team will gradually fall back as the core ages and we'll be left with doing a full rebuild .

I'm hoping saner heads prevail and our mang team realizes a change in direction is needed and believe taking a step back will yield better results in the future . Unfortunately i don't believe they're prepared to do this but one can hope .

 

[achtungbaby]

By pretending everything is fine you mean acknowledging the cap space and where moves can be made?

Did you expect the Leafs to have 30+ mill in space to go sign a whole new team?

You're right that the majority of the top 6 is signed, but you also have movable pieces, some open cap space and NHL ready players on the Marlies. Plenty of potential for change with this roster. I broke down some of the numbers earlier in this thread.

No I don't expect the Leafs to sign a new team. Going after UFA's and big contracts other teams don't want is what gets us into the same mess time after time. As you say, our true hope for improvement is going to be mostly internal. You're calling the Marlies players NHL ready, that remains to be seen. We have to hope that they're at least as good as the NHL veterans they're replacing. Yes they'll be cheaper, will they be better?

Rearranging our bottom players likely won't amount to much. Shedding some expensive wingers for Center depth and/or Defense is probably what's needed, but which other teams make that deal? Righting this ship isn't going to be as easy as some are making it out to be.

 

[Ricky Bobby]

Burke lead us down this path to no where and unfortunately Nonis continued to follow it which has left us with a flawed team who's core is in it's prime and unable to even get us into the playoffs .

Since we had few expendable assets of worth Nonis starting trading picks and the next course of action would seem to be trading the kids with value ( Kads/Gards ) in an effort to elevate this team into playoffs in the near future . This i believe not end well and after a few short playoff appearances the team will gradually fall back as the core ages and we'll be left with doing a full rebuild .

I'm hoping saner heads prevail and our mang team realizes a change in direction is needed and believe taking a step back will yield better results in the future . Unfortunately i don't believe they're prepared to do this but one can hope .

With the exception of Lupul all of our core is either just starting their primes like Kadri, JVR, Bernier of have lots of time left in their prime like Kessel, Phaneuf.

Then we have pieces like Gardiner + Rielly as potential top of the lineup players who haven't begun reaching their primes yet.

It isn't all doom and gloom. This team is young and have a lot of very good pieces. Now I'm just hoping Shanny/Nonis look at a longer term plan with a focus on dealing out pieces that aren't part of the long term plan like say Lupul, Gleason and potentially even Gunnarson + Kadri for more picks, prospects + young pieces instead of believing their simply a Bolland/Clarkson type moves away like we saw last off-season.

This team can't be fixed in one off-season but Nonis can certainly lay the foundation for this team to be contenders in 2 or 3 seasons when Gardiner + Rielly should be those key Dmen we desperately need.

 

[Gallagbi]

No I don't expect the Leafs to sign a new team. Going after UFA's and big contracts other teams don't want is what gets us into the same mess time after time. As you say, our true hope for improvement is going to be mostly internal. You're calling the Marlies players NHL ready, that remains to be seen. We have to hope that they're at least as good as the NHL veterans they're replacing. Yes they'll be cheaper, will they be better?

Rearranging our bottom players likely won't amount to much. Shedding some expensive wingers for Center depth and/or Defense is probably what's needed, but which other teams make that deal? Righting this ship isn't going to be as easy as some are making it out to be.

The Marlies won't be replacing anything but minor depth players. The cap space is available to upgrade on Raymond, Bolland, Kulemin, Franson and Reimer.

Using the Marlies on the bottom line and 7th dman gives them 15 mill to fill those spots.

You're basically saying the Leafs need to trade assets, which I don't disagree with, but that will impact their cap situation as well. Usually big pieces will have big salary going the other way

I don't think anyone is saying improvements will be easy, they're just saying the Leafs aren't in cap trouble.

 

[Trapper]

Burke lead us down this path to no where and unfortunately Nonis continued to follow it which has left us with a flawed team who's core is in it's prime and unable to even get us into the playoffs .

Since we had few expendable assets of worth Nonis starting trading picks and the next course of action would seem to be trading the kids with value ( Kads/Gards ) in an effort to elevate this team into playoffs in the near future . This i believe not end well and after a few short playoff appearances the team will gradually fall back as the core ages and we'll be left with doing a full rebuild .

I'm hoping saner heads prevail and our mang team realizes a change in direction is needed and believe taking a step back will yield better results in the future . Unfortunately i don't believe they're prepared to do this but one can hope .

Rate me as a GM.
The first thing I do when I get here is trade two 1sts and a 2nd for Jeff Skinner. Then I sign 3 College players and make one my no. 1 center. I trade for Ron Hainsey (the 6 year ago version) and pay him a lot of money to be my no. 1 D. I sign 3 guys that I spend the next 4 years trying to get rid of. Make a couple of decent picks but nothing elite. Luck out by trading one of those high draft pick for another solid winger. Eventually I commit my greatest cap space dollars to 3 wingers and 1 D. Most teams have at least 2 centers and a D under that cap commitment.
There's your core. How'd i do?

 

[Suntouchable13]

#1) Change the Coach. Has to be done.
#2) Get a #1 D.

Bernier is going to leave if we don't find a better defense for him.

Doesn't have to be a #1 D. Just get players that are committed to playing D and competing on a night to night basis.

 

[Mess]

Burke lead us down this path to no where and unfortunately Nonis continued to follow it which has left us with a flawed team who's core is in it's prime and unable to even get us into the playoffs .

Since we had few expendable assets of worth Nonis starting trading picks and the next course of action would seem to be trading the kids with value ( Kads/Gards ) in an effort to elevate this team into playoffs in the near future . This i believe not end well and after a few short playoff appearances the team will gradually fall back as the core ages and we'll be left with doing a full rebuild.

I'm hoping saner heads prevail and our mang team realizes a change in direction is needed and believe taking a step back will yield better results in the future . Unfortunately i don't believe they're prepared to do this but one can hope .

Going down a bad path is not corrected unless you back up to the fork in the road where the mistakes were made, regroup and then reload down a proper path thereafter. Some times a reset is easier than a continuous repair job.

Nonis has already as you said been trying to patch the current poorly assembled flawed team using picks and prospects not trading vets. Bolland might be a costly playoff rental for 2nd & 2X4ths for a non playoff team . Bernier 2nd and 2 leaf prospects, Holland for 2nd,7th and prospect..

Signing Clarkson was an expensive UFA signing trying to fix a top 6 that was butter soft that he inherited. Two wrongs don't make a right. However these are all moves trying to put a team over the top making them a stronger playoff team not a bottom 10 overall team.

So now the team is in a poor cap situation, has some players being paid among the highest at position and overall & rewarding failure rather than success with raises. Even if Shanny wanted to go a new direction trading some of these big contracts and getting a return that improves the team and finding trade partners is easier said then done.

 

[HamiltonNHL]

Rate me as a GM.
The first thing I do when I get here is trade two 1sts and a 2nd for Jeff Skinner. Then I sign 3 College players and make one my no. 1 center. I trade for Ron Hainsey (the 6 year ago version) and pay him a lot of money to be my no. 1 D. I sign 3 guys that I spend the next 4 years trying to get rid of. Make a couple of decent picks but nothing elite. Luck out by trading one of those high draft pick for another solid winger. Eventually I commit my greatest cap space dollars to 3 wingers and 1 D. Most teams have at least 2 centers and a D under that cap commitment.
There's your core. How'd i do?

Not Good !

Eventually I commit my greatest cap space dollars to 3 wingers and 1 D. Most teams have at least 2 centers and a D under that cap commitment.

It would be interesting to go through the whole league and prove that.

Forinstance, does *ANY* other team not have one centre when you look at the Top 50% of their cap space ?

 

[Mess]

It would be interesting to go through the whole league and prove that.

For instance, does *ANY* other team not have one centre when you look at the Top 50% of their cap space ?

Leafs 4 highest paid forwards are all wingers, in a league where strength down the middle is the desire of a successful team.

Leafs have +$30 mil of $70 mil (or 43%) on 4 X wingers + 1 Dman (Phaneuf) and that produces bottom 10 standings, goals against and Corsi figures.

That leaves you ~$40 mil cap space for 18 players including all your core positions of C, D and G.

If I were a NHL GM I would spend most of my Cap $$ resources on G, D and C as my priorities, and then my left over spare cap space on my wingers to fill out the team with a building from the goalie out plan of attack.

 

[Trapper]

Not Good !



It would be interesting to go through the whole league and prove that.

Forinstance, does *ANY* other team not have one centre when you look at the Top 50% of their cap space ?

Over 5 million club core next season:
Leafs: Phaneuf,Kessel,Lupul,Clarkson
Washinton: Ovi,Backstrom,Green
Tampa: Stamkos,Filpula,Carle
Philly: Giroux,Streit,MacDonald
SJ: Thornton,Marleau,Pavelski,Couture,Havlat,Burns,Boyle
Detroit: Datsyuk,Zetterberg,Howard
Boston: Bergeron,Chara,Krejci,Lucic,Rask
Pittsburgh: Crosby,Malkin,Neal,Letang,Fleury
Chicago: Toews,Kane,Sharp,Hossa,Keith,Seabrook,Crawford
Minny: Koivu,Parise,Pominville,Suter
LA: Kopitar,Richards,Carter,Doughty,Brown,Quick
Montreal: Plekanec,Price,Subban(coming soon)
St.Louis: Steen,JayBo,Pieterangelo
Winnipeg: Kane,Wheeler,Enstrom,Buff,Bogosian
Carolina: Staal,Staal,Semin,Skinner,Ward
NJ: Zajac,Elias
Columbus: Horton,Wiz,Bob
Van: Sedin,Sedin,Kesler,Edler
NYR: Richards,Nash,St.Louis,Lundquist
Anaheim: Getzlaf,Perry
Phoenix: Ribeiro,Doan,OEL,Yandle,Smith
Dallas: Seguin,Benn,Horcoff,Gonchar,Lehtonen
Nashville: Weber,Rinne
Buffalo: Myers
Edmonton: RNH,Hall,Eberle
Ottawa: Spezza,Ryan,Karlsson
Calgary: Wideman
Colorado: Duchene,Landy,Varlamov,(O'Reilly and Stastny?)
NYI: Tavares
Florida: Campbell
There you go.

 

[richardn]

Wouldn't a better question be: How do you assemble a Stanley Cup contender in the next 4 seasons around these 6 players?

Yes. that is the question. (or should be).

The answer should be obvious. It's not possible.

If you take every team in the NHL and assemble the team player by player starting with the highest salaries. Stop when you've hit 1/2 the Cap space. Toronto has the worst team in the league.

Exactly how I feel

 

[HamiltonNHL]

Looks like getting a #1 C is unlikely.

Here's the top 30 scoring centers in the NHL last year:

Crosby: drafted
Getzlaf: drafted
Girouix: drafted
Seguin: trade
Pavelski: drafted
Backstrom: drafted
Malkin: drafted
Kopitar: drafted
Thornton: trade
Duchene: drafted
Krejci: drafted
Toews: drafted
Tavares: drafted
Spezza: drafted
O'Reilly: drafted
Little: drafted
Johanson: drafted
Mackinnon: drafted
Bergeron: drafted
Staal: drafted
Statsny: drafted
Turris: trade
Filppula: UFA
Nielson: drafted
Backes: drafted
Stepan: drafted
RNH: drafted
Couture: drafted
Hudler: UFA
Koivu: drafted

Seguin and Thornton are the only two legit #1 centers who were acquired via trade, and both were situation where the team had made a purposeful decision to trade them, and they weren't just responding to random offers of random pieces from desperate teams.

Teams don't trade #1 centers for bits and pieces. Doesn't happen.

If you want to trade for somebody elses #3 center and hope they'll improve, why don't you just keep Kadri?