Leafs coming to a fork in the road as Marner nears full health; a trade may be incoming
Leafs winger Mitch Marner is inching closer to a return to the lineup, that is once the team returns to play after the pause. Marner is currently on Long-Term Injured Reserve because of a shoulder injury that he sustained in practice that has kept him out of action since the beginning of December.
Marner being on LTIR has meant that his cap hit is currently not counted against the salary cap for the Leafs. This stalled the Leafs' need to make a roster move when Ilya Mikheyev and Petr Mrazek came off of LTIR. Although a move is needed, Marner coming off of LTIR isn't as complicated for the team as one might think.
Marner has a cap hit of $10.903M per season. When the 24-year-old winger is off of LTIR the Leafs are north of $700K over the salary cap. What complicates things is that as the roster is currently constructed, the Leafs will be forced to make a move. One option is depending on the injury status of Rasmus Sandin. He could be moved to LTIR and the Leafs can procrastinate making a trade, for the time being.
The most likely option is that the Leafs make a decision between forwards Pierre Engvall and Ilya Mikheyev. Engvall caries a $1.25M cap hit wheras, Mikheyev carries a cap hit of $1.65M. Moving on from either forward would make room for Marner to come off of LTIR and help solidify what a full compliment of healthy Leafs forwards would look like - something we have yet to see this season.
The question between deciding between which of the two players to trade is; who gives you the best bang for your buck? Mikheyev is a better version of Pierre Engvall in my opinion but is he more valuable to this team when Engvall makes less money and has the ability to play centre?
Engvall has gelled well with David Kampf and Ondrej Kase and the Leafs penalty kill is currently 10th in the NHL without Mikheyev. Mikheyev's penalty killing and defensive abilities have been what people have been able to turn to when defending his lack of offensive production.
The salary cap has the Leafs' hands tied and they will be forced to make a move sooner or later. The unfortunate part is the Leafs will lose a good depth player and likely will not be able to get top value on either player as a trade chip due to teams knowing that they're tight up against the cap.
