Whatever it is, and despite his friendship with Matthews, it would be very difficult for the Leafs to renew his contract under a flat cap & extensions to Hyman and Dermott.
Take 5-5.5M away from 13.5M cap space and add two roster spots, you now have 8-8.5M left to sign eight (8) value deals averaging a little more than $1M/year -- including a starter.
In other words, about one third of the NHL roster will still be $1M players and you just lose Andersen while staying the course, replacing him with a Jack Campbell type in the starter role.
Different story if Dubas were to alter the 40M/4 cap structure via major trade... maybe he's actually betting on the flat cap going away as soon as next year, who knows.
Not necessarily, assuming Freddy signs for a shorter term of, say, 3 years.
Hyman's raise won't exceed 4mAAV in this climate, which can be mostly covered by Kessel's retention coming off the cap this summer. Rielly's raise can be entirely covered by trading Kerfoot for futures and replacing him at 3C with an internal option like Hallander, Abramov, Engvall, etc. or a cheap bargain bin player (e.g. Thornton). Dermott has arbitration rights after his current 1 year deal, so the Leafs will likely be able to decide the term and opt for a 2 year deal similar to Mikheyev; with Dermott's role not being conducive to high production, he won't have much of a case for a big raise yet. Holl's 2mill or Engvall's 1.2mill could be moved for more flexibility too.
The problem with signing Andersen comes after the Dermott/Lehtonen bridges expire (i'm expecting a similar deal for Mikko), but you could trade the last year of his deal to a team desperate for goaltending at that point instead of losing him in UFA now.
It can be done. The question is if you want to improve further by adding a Lowry piece in the off-season, then you'd likely be looking at a 1A-1B tandem setup with a starter coming in at 50% of Andersen's cap hit.
