Salary Cap: Leafs' 2014-2015 Cap Situation and Strategy

[Mess]

That Claude Loiselle guy was pretty terrible at his job. How does he sleep at night after leaving this team in such a mess.

Shanny has fired Loiselle, so we know that he wasn't happy with the job he did.

However its the GM that makes the decisions on player personnel moves & only how much he has room to spend is based on cap management analysis.

For example the Clarkson contract is more on Nonis than Loiselle.

 

[Ricky Bobby]

I'd rather deal in absolutes than speculate on what if's, we have just over 15 Million to sign 9 players by next summer. This is a fact, not sure how or why you think the cap will go up to 74M next summer.

The reality is it will take roughly 10M to sign Bernier and Kadri. This will leave us with 5M to sign 7 players including Franson. This is a cap crunch anyway you look at it. Moves will have to be made this is for certain.

As for having money to pursue Stamkos if he decides to go UFA 2016, unless there are more moves made, there is no money to take a run for him. This again is dealing with absolutes, not what ifs, or if the cap goes up 5M. Even then it would not be enough. This team is bloated with tied up money moving fwd for 3 years at least. This is a perfect illustration of tying up money on mediocrities, we are not LA or CHI but have less money to work with, this is my point.

This is where we differ, you may think this team is Stanley Cup bound, when you say LA or CHI did the same thing we did. However, I don't see any evidence this core is as good as either of these teams. Thus locking up so many mediocrities is a fundamental difference.

Two years is a long time. If Stamkos wants to come to Toronto, the cap space can and will be made available to fit him in.

Quickly review our roster and cap allocation from 2 years ago to now and it's substantially different. Then review two years prior to that and then 2 years prior to that. 2 years is a long time to make roster moves.

With the exception of Clarkson every contract we have could be traded for assets in return.

Guys like Holland, Nylander, Finn, Percy, Granberg, Reilly, Gardiner will take on more prominent roles. Nylander in particular could make a guy like Lupul disposable similar to how Kadri took the place of Grabo. Holland might eventually take the spot of someone like Bozak or at the very least the 3rd line center role.

What Toronto needs more then anything at this point is for Nylander to pan out well following the pick by getting another blue chipper at the top of the 15 draft.

Toronto has a lot of good pieces but much like when LA, St. Louis, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Colorado had some nice pieces the best thing that happened to those organizations was sucking for just that 1 extra year and grabbing another blue chipper like Staal, Kane, Schenn, Mackinnon, Pietrangelo.

Making the playoff last year seemed like a good thing but following up the Rielly pick with any of the top 8 pick in the 13 draft like Mackinnon, Barkov, Drouin, Jones, Lindholm, Monahan, Nurse, Ristolainen instead of Gauthier would have this organization in a much better place today.

 

[Jack Bauer]

As for having money to pursue Stamkos if he decides to go UFA 2016, unless there are more moves made, there is no money to take a run for him. This again is dealing with absolutes, not what ifs, or if the cap goes up 5M. Even then it would not be enough. This team is bloated with tied up money moving fwd for 3 years at least.

Probably the post that best describes how erratic and irrational this fan base can be.

You are really defending that the team can not under any possible circumstance dump any salary in order to improve itself.

You are saying JVR, Gardiner, Kadri, and Bernier hold no value other then as salary dumps.

That Kessel is an anchor. Lupul and Polak unmoveable. Reimer, Franson, and Bozak all with no value.

Seriously amazing that people can claim to have an open mind on things yet completely shut down the possibility of a team clearing cap space for 23 months down the road. Not tomorrow or by October 1st or July 1 of the next calendar year.....but that the thought of having cap space on July 1 2016 is bloated to the point of having no money for 3 years.

Amazing how uncreative and uninspiring this fan base can be at teams.

 

[Gary Nylund]

Two years is a long time. If Stamkos wants to come to Toronto, the cap space can and will be made available to fit him in.

Quickly review our roster and cap allocation from 2 years ago to now and it's substantially different. Then review two years prior to that and then 2 years prior to that. 2 years is a long time to make roster moves.

With the exception of Clarkson every contract we have could be traded for assets in return.

Guys like Holland, Nylander, Finn, Percy, Granberg, Reilly, Gardiner will take on more prominent roles. Nylander in particular could make a guy like Lupul disposable similar to how Kadri took the place of Grabo. Holland might eventually take the spot of someone like Bozak or at the very least the 3rd line center role.

What Toronto needs more then anything at this point is for Nylander to pan out well following the pick by getting another blue chipper at the top of the 15 draft.

Toronto has a lot of good pieces but much like when LA, St. Louis, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Colorado had some nice pieces the best thing that happened to those organizations was sucking for just that 1 extra year and grabbing another blue chipper like Staal, Kane, Schenn, Mackinnon, Pietrangelo.

Making the playoff last year seemed like a good thing but following up the Rielly pick with any of the top 8 pick in the 13 draft like Mackinnon, Barkov, Drouin, Jones, Lindholm, Monahan, Nurse, Ristolainen instead of Gauthier would have this organization in a much better place today.

Yup. We have one elite player - Kessel. We have some guys with the potential to be elite IMO in Rielly, Nylander and Bernier. We need not just Nylander to pan out but also Rielly and Bernier.

I don't know if I can bring myself to cheer against the Leafs but yeah, we could use another high pick badly.

And as far as Nylander making Lupul disposable, I say let's dispose of him right now to help us get that high pick.

 

[Pholus]

Yup. We have one elite player - Kessel. We have some guys with the potential to be elite IMO in Rielly, Nylander and Bernier. We need not just Nylander to pan out but also Rielly and Bernier.

I don't know if I can bring myself to cheer against the Leafs but yeah, we could use another high pick badly.

And as far as Nylander making Lupul disposable, I say let's dispose of him right now to help us get that high pick.

If he has another poor year, he's probably not going to fetch that high of a pick in return. I suppose if he plays lights out, he could be worth a 1st, but I could also see management being reluctant to trade one of their best forwards, especially if they are still in the race for the playoffs.

 

[HoweHullOrr]

Two years is a long time. If Stamkos wants to come to Toronto, the cap space can and will be made available to fit him in.

Quickly review our roster and cap allocation from 2 years ago to now and it's substantially different. Then review two years prior to that and then 2 years prior to that. 2 years is a long time to make roster moves.

With the exception of Clarkson every contract we have could be traded for assets in return.

Guys like Holland, Nylander, Finn, Percy, Granberg, Reilly, Gardiner will take on more prominent roles. Nylander in particular could make a guy like Lupul disposable similar to how Kadri took the place of Grabo. Holland might eventually take the spot of someone like Bozak or at the very least the 3rd line center role.

What Toronto needs more then anything at this point is for Nylander to pan out well following the pick by getting another blue chipper at the top of the 15 draft.

Toronto has a lot of good pieces but much like when LA, St. Louis, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Colorado had some nice pieces the best thing that happened to those organizations was sucking for just that 1 extra year and grabbing another blue chipper like Staal, Kane, Schenn, Mackinnon, Pietrangelo.

Making the playoff last year seemed like a good thing but following up the Rielly pick with any of the top 8 pick in the 13 draft like Mackinnon, Barkov, Drouin, Jones, Lindholm, Monahan, Nurse, Ristolainen instead of Gauthier would have this organization in a much better place today.

In other words (much shorter and concise), you are saying it would be better to "tank".

Yup. We have one elite player - Kessel. We have some guys with the potential to be elite IMO in Rielly, Nylander and Bernier. We need not just Nylander to pan out but also Rielly and Bernier.

I don't know if I can bring myself to cheer against the Leafs but yeah, we could use another high pick badly.

And as far as Nylander making Lupul disposable, I say let's dispose of him right now to help us get that high pick.

I agree. To say we have a lot of nice peices now is banking a lot on the future potential of a few players.

 

[Gary Nylund]

If he has another poor year, he's probably not going to fetch that high of a pick in return. I suppose if he plays lights out, he could be worth a 1st, but I could also see management being reluctant to trade one of their best forwards, especially if they are still in the race for the playoffs.

Yeah I know he's not going to fetch a very high pick, I was thinking more along the lines of let's trade him (and some other guys too) in order to make our pick a high one. Basically I'm becoming an advocate for tanking.

Ideal scenario I guess would be Lupul plays awesome, team plays poorly, Lupul's value becomes such that we get a 1st for him, we play even worse and end up with two 1st rounders in a strong draft, one of them (at least ours) being a very high pick.

And of course if Nylander makes the team I'm going to want to scream.