I guess we can keep talking about the leafs in the Oilers forum.
Assuming Kerfoot is taken in the expansion draft, the leafs have 65.5M in salary giving them 16M in cap space and 13 players signed. They need to sign 1 goaltender, 2 defenceman and 7 forwards. If the leafs manage to get Hyman at 6M that still only leaves 10M for 9 players. I think guys like Spezza and Bogosian will get slight increases. I dont see them really being able to improve from the roster they already have.
Campbell and Rielly will be ufas the following year and will look for significant increases even in a flat cap. So this next year is probably an all in year. I imagine they will have a lot of pressure to make the second round next year. It will be hard to acquire guys at the deadline with only 6 picks, so they probably need to get guys during free agency.
Dubas has his work cut out for him. My guess is they make some minor moves and signings and attempt a run again next year with the same core guys.
I don’t think Hyman will be 6 but they will be in tight to their cap after they sign him. I’ll bet he comes in no more than 5.
Spezza might not be so inclined to play for league minimum for a 3rd year on a team with Diva 1 and Diva 2 who disappear come playoff time. I can see him making a move to another team for three times the money.
Same w Bogosian who can probably make double his salary elsewhere. The Leafs will also have to pay 2-3M for a goalie to ride shotgun with Campbell who can’t be counted on being a number one in a normal season.
I agree they need to go all in and the only way to do that is pick up a couple of LTIR contracts so they can circumvent the salary cap.
Ryan Kesler $6.9 x 1
Andrew Shaw $3.9 x 1
Johnny Boychuk $6 x 1
By acquiring these 3 guys the Leafs can add about $17M to their cap.
They’d be hooped for adding players if they ran into injury trouble if they couldn’t put players on IR or LTIR in season and probably would not be able to add at the deadline but with their farm team in their own city they can carry 20 players for most games and not 23 saving them on the cap and being able to call up players who are at the league minimum.