The Leafs are very top heavy in salary structure given what they paid out to 2/3 of their young guns and Tavares, so they're hamstrung from making a massive upgrade on D, and the medium term future of Andersen, Rielly and Hyman is a little worrying.
Guys like Kerfoot, Johnsson and Kapanen look like they could be potential cap casualties, and whatever move we make with them needs to be carefully considered.
I prefer futures as opposed to trading for direct need so we can replenish the system a little bit - but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
Starting to wonder if Jake Muzzin is a bit of a luxury at his new cap hit too. I'm not very high on Dermott, but makes me wonder if we should keep him around in case we need to move Muzzin and suddenly become thinner on LHD. Kind of wish we hadn't extended Muzzin prior to Covid-19, as I'd imagine he'd come back a little cheaper had we waited. Oh well.
On the plus side, I think our top heavy cap isn't the end of the world. Having $28 million on guys like Matthews, Marner and Nylander is still far more preferable than Dallas carrying veteran guys on recent UFA deals that virtually every NHL team has a few of.
A few of the younger teams that are likely to be cup contending rivals have their flaws too. Colorado probably has the most enviable cap situation on paper, until you realize they don't actually have any reasonable budget for goaltending. One acquisition and they're on the same tightrope.
Tampa Bay remains a strong team with some value contracts on the upper end, but they also have some good player but not great contracts like Palat, Gourde, Killorn, Johnson in the way.
We don't have many of those. Edmonton still has its fair share of ugly contracts, no goaltending.
St. Louis has a lot of expensive middle class contracts for players in their 30s and don't have Pietrangelo under contract.
Philadelphia is a strong young nucleus but for some reason have $31 million tied up in Giroux, van Riemsdyk, Hayes and Voracek long term. That's going to stunt them long term over the Covid-19 recovery years.
Vancouver has a strong cast of young players, but they have some ugly contracts such as Loui Eriksson, a lot of expensive middle class players like Miller, Horvat, Roussel, Myers, Edler and none of Markstrom, Hughes nor Pettersson have been signed.
Florida has a great young core and Barkov and Huberdeau are on friendly deals, but lots of problems on the horizon if Bobrovsky doesn't pan out. Much rather have our guys. Not to mention a premium paid in contracts to Stralman and Yandle who are near their mid 30s and a fair share of non value deals for Vatrano, Connolly and Matheson.
Carolina is in pretty good shape, but again, their goalie budget is small and consists of Reimer and Mrazek, which isn't strong, and some serious money left over for Jordan Staal, Nino Niederreiter and Jake Gardiner commanding nearly $15 million.
Even the model rebuild the Rangers are going through has Trouba, Kreider taking up cap hit of $14.5 million long term, as well as other bad expiring deals for Marc Staal, Lundqvist, Brendan Smith that will carry over one more season.
In short, most teams are going to be caught flat footed... and they don't have Matthews, Tavares, Marner and Nylander.
