Leafs have surprisingly large amount of cap space at their disposal this summer
The total amount of salary cap space that the Toronto Maple Leafs have to work with this summer has officially been revealed, but how far will take them?
Thanks to the recent announcement from the NHL regarding the league's upper limit of the salary cap being set to $88M, the Maple Leafs will have just under $20M ($19.705M) in available cap space with which to re-tool their roster this summer.
The Toronto Maple Leafs are in need of some changes this off-season, after another first round exit. The good news is, the near 20M in cap space gives them a lot of options.
$20M seems like a lot, but it can evaporate very quickly. With the likes of Max Domi and Tyler Bertuzzi looking for contract extensions, they may very well eat up half the Leafs' summer cap space, so the team may need to choose one or the other in order to have enough cap space remaining to adequately deal with their needs on the blueline.
For more on Bertuzzi and Domi, TSN has you covered:
Treliving: Leafs remain interested in bringing back Bertuzzi, Domi.
The Leafs are almost assuredly looking to bring in two of the bigger free agent defensemen to help re-build their blueline, meaning they'll take a run at Brett Pesce, Matt Roy, Brady Skjei and Nikita Zadorov and see which offers them the best fit for the best price.
Beyond the forwards and the defense, the Leafs still need to find someone to either play behind Joseph Woll or in a tandem with the young netminder. With all of that out of the way, it also doesn't include the deals for the team's restricted free agents, including Timothy Liljegren, Nick Robertson and Connor Dewar.
As you can see, $20M is not a lot with all of these considerations. The most logical thing for the Leafs will be to try to shed some salary elsewhere in the lineup to open up some more cap space. I'd imagine that David Kampf and Conor Timmins and their combined $3.5M cap hit and replacing them with league minimum players would be pretty appealing to the Leafs to help them gain some additional cap flexibility.
Buckle up, folks, because the next couple of weeks are sure to be eventful.
| POLL | ||
11 JUIN | 380 ANSWERS Leafs have surprisingly large amount of cap space at their disposal this summer What area should the Leafs focus on first this off-season? | ||
| Goalie | 126 | 33.2 % |
| Forwards | 7 | 1.8 % |
| Defence | 247 | 65 % |
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