One likely cap casualty for the Leafs this summer
Alex Kerfoot is having a career season. However, it is no secret that the Toronto Maple Leafs will have some difficult decisions to make this off season due to the salary cap. This is not an indictment of the Leafs, it is a simple and unfortunate fact of the salary cap era in the NHL. Teams are forced to trade away players they would rather keep. We have already seen it here in Toronto with the likes of Andreas Johnsson and Kasperi Kapanen.
With Toronto's top four forwards coming in at just under half of the entire salary cap, the middle of the lineup has been and will continue to be squeezed.
Alex Kerfoot is in the midst of a career season:
Credit: Hockeydb
He is a versatile player who can play center or wing. He has shown he can produce with high end talent, as well as contribute offensively in a bottom six role. As a hockey player, he could be very attractive to many teams looking to improve their scoring depth. He sits tied for 98th in overall league scoring (pretty good for a depth player) and is currently on pace to score 57 points this season. That production and his current price tag makes him a value contract.
Kerfoot is under contract until the end of next season. His cap hit is $3.5 million (fifth amongst Leaf forwards). But in terms of real money, he is owed much less:
Credit: Capfriendly
It is important to note, signing bonuses are paid out July 1st. Meaning as of July 2nd, 2022, he will be owed a $750,000 salary for the final year of his contract. Normally when hockey fans think of a player earning less real dollars than their salary cap hit, they think of Arizona attempting to get to the cap floor. But with the recent COVID-19 pandemic, there could be other teams interested who operate on an internal budget looking to save dollars and still be competitive. Alex Kerfoot, with the way his contract is structured, could fit that bill.
He could complicate matters, given the fact that he has a 10-team no trade clause in his contract, but as long as the team is aware of who is on that list (see Vegas and Evgenii Dadonov), a move can still be made.
Another option is to keep Kerfoot for the final year of his deal, at which point, he will likely be priced out of Toronto. That said, teams trade for rentals every year at the trade deadline. Keeping your own is not always bad practice if they add more value to the team than they'd bring back in a trade. But this would also have implications on what the Leafs can do in other positions this offseason.
Kerfoot has also played most of the season with Nylander and Tavares, at times being a benefactor of playing with elite level talent. Not to say he has not benefitted the two stars, but Nylander and Tavares need to be able to produce and play at a high level with or without Kerfoot in order for the Leafs to be successful. Dollars need to be allocated to places of need and taken from places that can survive with less.
With everything above in mind, I predict Kerfoot will be moved this offseason. However, Leaf fans should enjoy watching the Havard University alum continue to excel for the remainder of the season and into the playoffs. We can figure out the rest after.
| POLL | ||
MARS 31 | 296 ANSWERS One likely cap casualty for the Leafs this summer Will Alex Kerfoot be a Leaf next season? | ||
| Yes | 77 | 26 % |
| Not Sure | 76 | 25.7 % |
| No | 117 | 39.5 % |
| Who cares, lets enjoy him while he's here! | 26 | 8.8 % |
| List of polls | ||
