But, in the offseason, can't the leafs go 89.65 million, plus the extra 10.5 million ltir relief of Horton/Clarkson?
according to the explanations from cap friendly they can but then they will have to be cap compliant by the time season starts LTIR and ACSL are re-calculated.
ACSL = Salary cap upper limit - team cap space
at the moment for leafs it is:
81.5 - 0= 81.5M + 10% offseason cushion = 89.65M
Max overage allowed is 89.65M right now they can exceed it by spending around 8M more at max; Leafs are currently showing around 84M in projected cap hit on cap friendly
I could be wrong here but my understanding is that offseason spending overage allowed for 86.95M (10%) includes LTIR; if it doesn't then it really doesn't matter whether leafs sign marner now or later as it will end being the same exceed limit allowed.
But the catch is that the leafs have to be close to the upper limit of 81.5M when the season starts to fully exercise the max they can spend which is around 92M.
If the Leafs are below 81.5M in cap hit they won't be able to maximize their spending of 92M; and if they are above it they will have to either trade (or bury) few contracts.
My whole thinking is based around the fact that if the 22 man roster by the time season starts is around 81.5M then leafs can spend 10.5M for Marner and hit 92 million mark
If Leafs sign Marner now and lets say their 23 man roster is less than 81.5M they will not be able to maximize their spending potential as they might not be able to use full 10.5 LTIR relief and if it is above (which it definitely will be) leafs are gonna have to make some moves.
Suppose Leafs are able to go over the 10% overage using LTIR i.e. 89.65+10.5 around 100M
by the time season starts Leafs will have to be cap compliant for 81.5M + 10.5 = 92M (max) allowed; that means Leafs will have to bury 8 million somewhere that is a hard thing to do.
At the moment Leafs show
84M cap hit (cap friendly) with a 23 man roster (not including Marner, Hyman, Dermott, Clarkson, Horton) and they are already at 48 contracts
Toronto Maple Leafs - CapFriendly - NHL Salary Caps
Leafs 2 way contracts are as follows:
| Two-Way Contracts | |
| Frederik Gauthier | 675,000 |
| Travis Dermott | 863,333 |
| Ilya Mikheyev | 925,000 |
| Egor Korshkov | 925,000 |
| Pierre Engvall | 925,000 |
| Jeremy Bracco | 842,500 |
| Semyon Der Arguchintsev | 783,333 |
| Mason Marchment | 767,500 |
| Adam Brooks | 759,167 |
| Dmytro Timashov | 694,444 |
| Rasmus Sandin | 894,167 |
| Timothy Liljegren | 863,333 |
| Joe Duszak | 800,000 |
| Mac Hollowell | 799,766 |
| Teemu Kivihalme | 792,500 |
| Jesper Lindgren | 775,833 |
| Aaron Luchuk | 759,166 |
| Andreas Borgman | 700,000 |
| Ian Scott | 805,833 |
| Joseph Woll | 800,000 |
| Kasimir Kaskisuo | 675,000 |
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The bolded ones technically speaking can be buried as they are expected to start on the roster (2.5M bolded ones) other than that all of them are one way contracts that at present are listed in the 23 man roster (not including marner)
So if one does the math
leafs currently 84M - 2.5M (burried) = 81.5M right at the ceiling which will alow them to exercise the full 92M cap hit; but as soon as they start calling (which they will-> Dermott + Mikheyev) leafs are gonna be above the cap if Leafs give Marner 10.5AAV.
Sure one can argue that there is some LTIR relief from Hyman and Dermott that can be used (Dermott doesn't have to be buried) but then the transactions get really freakin' complicated.
Idea is to be around 81.5 cap ceiling (with the contracts) at the start of the season before leafs use full LTIR releif of Clarkson and Horton to maximize spending.
