A popular lottery commercial uses the slogan “Just Imagine” as their tag line, with regards to what you can buy with the millions of dollars you could possibly win.
In the NHL salary cap world millions of dollars are spent, but this isn’t a lottery format: astute management and scouting gives the best teams the most bang for their buck and sets them up for a chance to win the Stanley Cup.
“Just Imagine” a current Toronto Maple Leafs roster that included Phil Kessel ($8 million), Dion Phaneuf ($7 million), David Clarkson ($5.25 million), Joffrey Lupul ($5.25 million), Jonathan Bernier ($4.1 million) and Stephane Robidas ($3 million).
This represents a total of $32.6 million in salaries for a core veteran group that two years ago one would have thought would have been the nucleus of a much more successful Leaf team in 2017. All of these players are on NHL contracts that were negotiated by the various Maple Leaf management groups in the past few years, and not ones acquired via trade. At the time, the general consensus was this group would still be in Toronto in 2017.
As we well know, the on-ice success didn’t happen. The only thing worse than being a fan of a team that isn’t successful is being a fan of an unsuccessful team that also doesn’t have any cap space — not only is the present bleak, the future doesn’t look great either. The Leafs were that type of team for a few years.
Instead, how about replacing those six players (and their NHL salaries) with the following six newcomers who are in the 2016-17 Leafs lineup: Nikita Zaitsev ($1.775 million), Auston Matthews ($925,000), Mitch Marner ($894,167), William Nylander ($894,167), Nikita Soshnikov ($736,667) and Connor Brown ($686,666). A total of $5.91 million in place of the $32.6 million from the previous core of Leafs who have either been traded for moved to an injury list.
Current Leafs GM Lou Lamoriello had a strong summer building off those discarded “bad” contracts. He traded for Frederik Andersen and signed him for five years at $5 million per season. Morgan Rielly (six years at $5 million per season) and Nazem Kadri (six years at $4.5M per season) were also extended long-term and that gave the Leafs three younger players who will have reasonable cap hits for the term of their deals.
Three other contracts Lamoriello inherited end after next season: James van Riemsdyk ($4.25 million), Tyler Bozak ($4.2 million) and Leo Komarov ($2.95 million). These deals seem to expire at a perfect time for Lamoriello to figure out exactly where they fit in the team’s future. Are they possibly trade deadline moves in 2018, or do they fit in with the “new” Leaf world order? One last piece would be Jake Gardiner ($4.05 million) whose contract expires a year later in 2019.
The six new, young players are all playing under the NHL rookie salary cap contract structure that mandates the first three years of a player’s contract. Beyond their base salaries, all of the players have opportunities to attain scoring bonuses that could get their total salary package up to a high of $3.775 million for the season. The “downside” of this is that whatever bonuses are achieved are then added to the team’s salary cap for next season. Still a small price to pay for the on-ice excellence of this exciting group.
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Chris Johnston recently wrote an excellent article on sportsnet.ca that outlines exactly that situation for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The reality of negotiating a player’s second NHL contract when the rookie deal comes to an end is staggered for the Leafs over the next three summers. Brown, Zaitsev and Hyman will be RFAs this summer, Nylander and Soshnikov are up in 2018 and Matthews and Marner — the most significant players — aren’t up until 2019.
At first it seemed like the $73 million NHL salary cap limit would stay there, but the latest projections have now it being increased to perhaps $75.5-$76 million.
So Toronto Maple Leaf fans are enjoying a long-awaited pleasure in watching a successful and exciting team on the ice, while also not being told grim realities of the salary cap woes that come from having too many non-cap-friendly contracts. To a degree, it is a short-lived perfect storm.
“Just Imagine” what guys like Matthews, Marner and Nylander will get on their second contracts. But that is for another day and another year.
