The Toronto Maple Leafs are in a rather unique situation in the NHL at the moment. It seems as if we basically have infinite money as far as trying to maneuver in a salary cap world. The owners seem perfectly willing to throw a lot of money around if it will improve the team.
Now before everyone has a meltdown, I'm not suggesting we sign big ticket UFAs to multi-year deals. I'm also not suggesting we take on so many bad contracts that we're hitting the cap for the next few years. I think we need to have enough cap space by next season to sign Stamkos (or get some other franchise player). This year however, I think we should try to hit the cap from the start of the season by signing 1 year contracts, even if it means dramatically overpaying.
Our plan should be to do exactly what we did with Winnik and Santorelli, only on a much bigger scale. So whatever cap room we have, we need to spend it. If we dramatically overpay for someone, we can still trade them at the deadline and retain 50% of their salary. The other team only has to pay a small fraction of their salary anyways because the trade deadline is near the end of the season. So we want as many good players as we can get so we can deal them as basically free rentals at the deadline and get back some good picks and prospects.
For example, if we have $10 mil in cap space and 1 roster spot still available, why not throw that money at someone like Martin St. Louis? Come trade deadline, we retain 50% and trade him to a contender. We could easily pick up a first and prospect. The team that gets him basically gets to use him for the playoffs without having to pay much of his inflated salary.
The only reason we would have for not spending to the cap on 1 year players if if we want to accumulate cap space so that we can go shopping at the trade deadline. And since that's probably not happening, we might as well spend to the cap right from the beginning of the season. And if I understand how the Horton contract works correctly, we're allowed to spend over the cap by his salary amount, but his cap room doesn't accumulate throughout the year if we're under the cap.
I think the only justification for the Leafs not spending to the cap is if they're intentionally trying to lose games to get a better draft pick. I obviously think that's really stupid and we're clearly not going to do that. We'd do better by picking up multiple picks by spending to the cap. If we were trying to tank, we should still spend to the cap, but just go out and find the worst goalie imaginable.
Finally, let's just look at a realistic example. Let's say that there's a UFA out there this year who we think is pretty good. Other teams are offering him contracts like $3 mil for 3 years. This would be considered a fair value contract. The Leafs could just come in and offer him $6 mil for 1 year. From the players perspective, he gets paid double what he otherwise would have, and it's almost guaranteed that he gets traded to a playoff contender. He has the chance to showcase his skills in a playoff run on a strong team. Then he becomes a UFA again the next year and as long as he signs for more than $1.5 mil for 2 years, he's coming out ahead. For the Leafs, we might as well spend that $6 mil because otherwise it's just wasted cap space. The team that picks him up doesn't really care that his cap hit is $6 mil because the Leafs can retain half, so he's only a $3 mil player, and they only pay him for a fraction of the season, so the money isn't really an issue.
I guess I just see a lot of people making the claim that we wont be a cap team for years and that we've got all the cap space in the world to burn. Without Clarkson's contract we've got more room, and if we trade someone like Kessel, we'll have lots of room. But we should still put all that cap room to good use every year. No use in wasting it. It's still valuable to us even though we're not trying to make a run at the cup this year. We can basically turn all our cap space into 1 year contracts which we can then turn into picks and prospects. I'm assuming that guys like Dubas understand this, but I guess we'll find out soon enough. On the off chance that we're not planning on spending to the cap this year, someone should really explain all this to Shanny/Hunter/Dubas so that we don't miss out on all the good UFAs come July 1st. And if we go into the season way under the cap, we can't really fix the mistake at that point.
Now before everyone has a meltdown, I'm not suggesting we sign big ticket UFAs to multi-year deals. I'm also not suggesting we take on so many bad contracts that we're hitting the cap for the next few years. I think we need to have enough cap space by next season to sign Stamkos (or get some other franchise player). This year however, I think we should try to hit the cap from the start of the season by signing 1 year contracts, even if it means dramatically overpaying.
Our plan should be to do exactly what we did with Winnik and Santorelli, only on a much bigger scale. So whatever cap room we have, we need to spend it. If we dramatically overpay for someone, we can still trade them at the deadline and retain 50% of their salary. The other team only has to pay a small fraction of their salary anyways because the trade deadline is near the end of the season. So we want as many good players as we can get so we can deal them as basically free rentals at the deadline and get back some good picks and prospects.
For example, if we have $10 mil in cap space and 1 roster spot still available, why not throw that money at someone like Martin St. Louis? Come trade deadline, we retain 50% and trade him to a contender. We could easily pick up a first and prospect. The team that gets him basically gets to use him for the playoffs without having to pay much of his inflated salary.
The only reason we would have for not spending to the cap on 1 year players if if we want to accumulate cap space so that we can go shopping at the trade deadline. And since that's probably not happening, we might as well spend to the cap right from the beginning of the season. And if I understand how the Horton contract works correctly, we're allowed to spend over the cap by his salary amount, but his cap room doesn't accumulate throughout the year if we're under the cap.
I think the only justification for the Leafs not spending to the cap is if they're intentionally trying to lose games to get a better draft pick. I obviously think that's really stupid and we're clearly not going to do that. We'd do better by picking up multiple picks by spending to the cap. If we were trying to tank, we should still spend to the cap, but just go out and find the worst goalie imaginable.
Finally, let's just look at a realistic example. Let's say that there's a UFA out there this year who we think is pretty good. Other teams are offering him contracts like $3 mil for 3 years. This would be considered a fair value contract. The Leafs could just come in and offer him $6 mil for 1 year. From the players perspective, he gets paid double what he otherwise would have, and it's almost guaranteed that he gets traded to a playoff contender. He has the chance to showcase his skills in a playoff run on a strong team. Then he becomes a UFA again the next year and as long as he signs for more than $1.5 mil for 2 years, he's coming out ahead. For the Leafs, we might as well spend that $6 mil because otherwise it's just wasted cap space. The team that picks him up doesn't really care that his cap hit is $6 mil because the Leafs can retain half, so he's only a $3 mil player, and they only pay him for a fraction of the season, so the money isn't really an issue.
I guess I just see a lot of people making the claim that we wont be a cap team for years and that we've got all the cap space in the world to burn. Without Clarkson's contract we've got more room, and if we trade someone like Kessel, we'll have lots of room. But we should still put all that cap room to good use every year. No use in wasting it. It's still valuable to us even though we're not trying to make a run at the cup this year. We can basically turn all our cap space into 1 year contracts which we can then turn into picks and prospects. I'm assuming that guys like Dubas understand this, but I guess we'll find out soon enough. On the off chance that we're not planning on spending to the cap this year, someone should really explain all this to Shanny/Hunter/Dubas so that we don't miss out on all the good UFAs come July 1st. And if we go into the season way under the cap, we can't really fix the mistake at that point.
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