Salary Cap: No-offseason Plan A: Sign Mitch, acquire $10m at the TDL

BoredBrandonPridham

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Aug 9, 2011
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I was thinking about how a lot of our cap outlook comprises of us looking at a 22-man rosters against a $81.5m salary cap. But as we know, cap space accumulates daily and you can accrue a balance early to spend over the AAV limit later. I don't think we fully internalize the scale of impact this can have, and we've seen the Leafs exploit it with Trevor Moore. Last season, Leafs used Moore's waiver exemption to bring him onto the NHL roster on game days, and demote him on the off-days, thus saving his daily cap accruals on the off-days.

I'm going to just skip the whole off-season and take that technique one step further to an off-day 20-man roster to see how we can use that to try and ice the most competitive play-off team (if all went to plan) while taking a performance hit earlier in the season, and what overall impact that could have on TDL day for us.

First, let's knock out a couple common cap fallacies that we cannot try and exploit:

1. You cannot accrue if you're using LTIR. I am not going to put Horton on LTIR until the TDL.
2. You gain nothing by letting Mitch sit for part of the season only to sign him later. In-year cap inflation will cancel out this effect (see Nylander year1 cap v.s. 2+ / out-year)

Second, let's make a couple of assumptions and solidify that this is obviously a hypothetical estimate:

1. I'm going to reasonably ignore the unsubstantiated rumour about Mitch "turning down" $11mx8. I'm going to equate that speculation with the speculation of Nylander holding out for $8m+ and that gets us Mitch at around $9.8mx5. If you want to bump a couple hundred K it doesn't impact this analysis all that much.
2. Obviously, this plan does not take into consideration injuries which can derail things, additionally with the looming fact that one or both of Dermott and Hyman may be eating cap early. I haven't really seen many people discussing AAV cap hits considering that, so for this exercise I won't either
3. We've traded Brown & Zaitsev for not much of any consequence (I think we can realistically do a bit better than that, though...)
4. Assume I've made a couple off-by-1 errors on the days and accrual and stuff below, sorry about that! I hope the overall concept and structure is close, though.

The point of this is to just gauge the scale of this technique in a vacuum to see if Leafs really have any flexibility to get creative with the cap and roster, and to be honest I think there's a bit more flexibility here throughout the season that we give credit for.

I've split the season into 3 chapters where team performance will be re-evaluated:

Extended Try Out (Oct 2 - Nov 1)

Finally give a proper look to our cheap press box fodder: Holl & Petan. For all of October, these guys play every game. Rather than keep them sitting in the press box every day accumulating wasted cap, we put them on the ice and potential ELC replacements play/train on the Marlies for October. Leafs ice a 20 man roster.

Set the team (Nov 1 - Dec 22)

After extended try outs we've decided who will be playing somewhat regularly, and who will be on hold in the press box to step in in case of injury. During this time we will have a 20 man off-day roster and a 22-man game day roster. Our 22-man game day roster has ~$1.8m coming up from the Marlies to accrue a day of cap, then they go back down. Note our 22-man game day roster puts us over $1.8m, but we accrue that allowance in Oct.

At this point we revisit how disastrous this team has performed. If making playoffs is really at risk, let's execute some explored trade options before the holiday trade freeze and put Horton on LTIR ("Plan B"). This cap exercise assumes we'll stick to Plan A, though.

TDL stretch (Dec 22 - Feb 24 TDL)

We continue our off-day/game-day roster switch accruing as much cap as possible. At this point, we execute 3 transactions:

a) One set of transactions in which we'll acquire up to ~$4.7m to push us right up to the cap daily limit. We need to do this to maximize our LTIR benefit
b) Finally assign Horton on LTIR, allowing us to exceed by his daily accrual
c) Execute another trade in which we'll acquire up to $5.3m to fill Horton's space

A total of $10m AAV acquired at the deadline to shore up the defense and unarguably guarantee us a cup win, right?

Ok, here's the numbers.

2019-20 daily cap accrual: $81.5m / 186 days = $438,172 per day

I present to your our opening day, stinktastic 20-man roster, which is $1,409,468 under the cap (-$7,577 per day), and I have not put Horton on LTIR:

upload_2019-6-29_12-24-57.png


This is the estimated off-day roster (also the try-out roster that will play all of October). Good opportunity here for Marlies who have done a lot for the organization. They deserve a good look, just like Sparks did.

As mentioned, after October, we will be calling up ~$1.8m of replacements on game days. That's like Mikheyev (sorry dude) and some just-under $900k AAV Marlies flavour of the week. I had put that team cap hit around $81,808,032 ($300k over the cap). We can't ice this game day 22-man roster until we've completed our October try-outs and accrued the additional cap space to ice it.

So lets look at how these rosters accrue daily cap throughout the seasons in our evaluation segments:

October 2, 2019 (Day 1)
=================

Accrued upper limit: $438,172
Leafs off-day and opening roster: $80,090,532 (-$1,409,468): Daily: $430,594
Leafs game-day roster: $81,808,032 (+$308,032): Daily: $439,828

November 1, 2019 (Days: 30, held the $430,594 roster every day)
=====================

Accrued upper limit: $12,706,988 (since opening day)
Spent cap: $12,487,226 (-$219,762) (since opening day)
New daily limit: (81,500,000 - 12,487,226) / (186 - 30) = $442,389 (now enough space for our game-day roster)

Dec 21, 2019 (Days: 51; Off-days: 28; Game-days: 23)
======================================

Accrued upper limit: $22,346,774 (since Nov 1)
Spent cap: $22,172,676 (-$174,098) (since Nov 1)
New daily limit: (81,500,000 - 34,659,902) / (186 - 81) = $446,096 ($1,473,856 AAV)

Feb 24, 2020 (Days: 65; Off-days: 39; Game-days: 26)
=======================================

Accrued upper limit: $28,481,182 (since Dec 21)
Spent cap: $28,228,694 (-$252,488) (since Dec 21)
New daily limit: (81,500,000 - 62,888,596) / (186 - 146) = $465,285 ($5,043,010 AAV)

As we approach the trade deadline, Leafs have options for these transactions in roughly this order:

1. Recall game day roster from Marlies, roster daily spend now at: $439,828
2. Acquire a net +$4,735,002 AAV ($25,457 daily), roster daily spend: $465,285 (at the Feb 24 limit)
3. Place Horton on LTIR, allowed to exceed daily limit by $28,494 ($5,299,884 AAV player)
4. Acquire another net +$5,300,000 AAV in transactions to fill our Horton overage

Thus, we:

a) Made full use of time available, maximizing our assets
b) Gave our developing prospects a good look to keep that FA/Marlies "you'll get your chance" karma flowing
c) Didn't make knee-jerk, short-sighted, regrettable decisions, trading high potential players that are the core of this team such as Nylander and Marner
d) Accrued flexibility, while establishing checkpoints to "bail out" of Plan A if things were going way, way south. Best case scenario, Matthews 100% healthy, Nylander now 100% of season, our prospects excelled and we could fulfill the whole plan. Worst case, we accrue a bit of extra cap space, LTIR Horton around Christmas and make a transaction for a maybe ~$2.5m Zaitsev replacement which is higher than we would have had if we made that transaction before the season
e) Accrued serious cap space to help us in the playoffs
 

NHL WAR

Registered User
Sep 29, 2018
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I was thinking about how a lot of our cap outlook comprises of us looking at a 22-man rosters against a $81.5m salary cap.

Very interesting. I had the same basic thought of using a 20 man roster to accumulate cap space, but had nowhere near the dedication to figure out all the details. It would pain me not to have Horton on LTIR from day one, but this plan could be very successful. Ultimately, the Leafs would only have to stay in the playoff picture until February, which is nearly a guarantee even with that defense core. Then they could absolutely load up at the deadline, although with no 2020 1st this may mean a bunch of support players rather than a single star. Plenty of decent defensemen on expiring deals. The team could be a monster by playoff time (which is all that matters.)
 
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Sypher04

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Jan 20, 2011
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Seems risky. Not putting Horton on LTIR would mean either we cannot afford Mitch or we cannot afford to address the defense short of plugging in minimum salary replacements. Saving all your cap space to make a splash for playoffs is well and good, but the team has to be realistically in the mix for a spot. Definitely an interesting write up though
 
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BoredBrandonPridham

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Aug 9, 2011
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Very interesting. I had the same basic thought of using a 20 man roster to accumulate cap space, but had nowhere near the dedication to figure out all the details. It would pain me not to have Horton on LTIR from day one, but this plan could be very successful. Ultimately, the Leafs would only have to stay in the playoff picture until February, which is nearly a guarantee even with that defense core. Then they could absolutely load up at the deadline, although with no 2020 1st this may mean a bunch of support players rather than a single star. Plenty of decent defensemen on expiring deals. The team could be a monster by playoff time (which is all that matters.)

At the least, if not many useful options are available, we could be in a situation where we accept a cap dump to recoup some futures from the Marleau trade if nothing else.
 

BoredBrandonPridham

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Aug 9, 2011
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Nicely done.

That D though..... ooof

Yea it’s not brilliant. But I think many overestimate the real tangible difference between cheap top end Marlies D and low end depth NHL D. It does really suck to lose Gardiner, but that’s one hell of an opportunity for Liljegren.
 

mclaren55

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Apr 12, 2010
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Yea it’s not brilliant. But I think many overestimate the real tangible difference between cheap top end Marlies D and low end depth NHL D. It does really suck to lose Gardiner, but that’s one hell of an opportunity for Liljegren.

Based on what I saw from liljegren last year, I doubt he is ready for NHL duties at this point in time.

I feel if we were to roll with that D, we probably become a bubble team immediately.
 
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Sypher04

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I don't think Liljegren being around would be the worst thing, even if it's not my first choice, but not a fan of giving Holl a spot at all. I'd rather sign a veteran on a really cheap 1 year deal
 

hamzarocks

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Jul 22, 2012
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Mitch has probably cost us Miller so far
Naw dubas has cost us Miller so Far. He should have went after him. There is nothing stopping him from making deals right now. He is way to fixated with the marner situation that hes completley forgotten about fixing the roster issues on the team.

Connor brown should've been dealt by the draft. That would give us some additional cap to for in Miller.

The Zaitsev deal should have been pulled by now. If he was waiting for the signing bonus and than making a deal he could have still gotten Miller and dealt Zaitsev on July 1st. Not going after Miller for a reduced price was a terrible choice by Dubas.
 
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Sypher04

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Naw dubas has cost us Miller so Far. He should have went after him. There is nothing stopping him from making deals right now. He is way to fixated with the marner situation that hes completley forgotten about fixing the roster issues on the team.

Connor brown should've been dealt by the draft. That would give us some additional cap to for in Miller.

The Zaitsev deal should have been pulled by now. If he was waiting for the signing bonus and than making a deal he could have still gotten Miller and dealt Zaitsev on July 1st. Not going after Miller for a reduced price was a terrible choice by Dubas.

The Leafs need to have the space at any given time to match an offer sheet on Marner. In case it by some chance were to happen.
 
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BoredBrandonPridham

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Based on what I saw from liljegren last year, I doubt he is ready for NHL duties at this point in time.

I feel if we were to roll with that D, we probably become a bubble team immediately.

A bubble team until the TDL, + a contender after the TDL is a playoff team and contender in the playoffs :) But yea it’s risky. We could be worse than a bubble team. But like I said you could pull the plug and LTIR Horton earlier and make sure you’re having trade contingency plans throughout.
 

Mess

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A bubble team until the TDL, + a contender after the TDL is a playoff team and contender in the playoffs :) But yea it’s risky. We could be worse than a bubble team. But like I said you could pull the plug and LTIR Horton earlier and make sure you’re having trade contingency plans throughout.

I don't think Dubas tossed away a 1st round pick to not to use Horton LTIR starting in October from day #1 when he dealt Marleau.

The plan was either to use LTIR to cover most of Marleau's contract, or deal Marleau and use that potential of $5.3 mil max early to cover other salaries including Marner's new deal. IMO
 

Mess

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? You should read the OP. Horton LTIR gets used.

But its needed to Fix the defense for opening night, not try and hang on for dear life until the TD and then use rental players to hope you get into the playoffs and save your season, and also go on a long playoff run.

You're strategy appears to put the outcome of his season on Dubas work at the trade deadline, and whom he can successfully add by paying overpaid prices in trade for perhaps rental players.

I believe you have your priorities backwards in that the focus should be to put yourself into the playoff running in the first 60+ games of the season and then use the TD only to add to a Cup run, but is the players that got you there, not the mystery boxes that may or may not materialize at the TD.

If Leafs are 10 points out of a playoff spot at the TD do you then suggest going all out with your free cap space in reserve and try and salvage the season, or hope for a lottery pick at that point?
 
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taurine330

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But its needed to Fix the defense for opening night, not try and hang on for dear life until the TD and then use rental players to hope you get into the playoffs and save your season, and also go on a long playoff run.

You're strategy appears to put the outcome of his season on Dubas work at the trade deadline, and whom he can successfully add by paying overpaid prices in trade for perhaps rental players.
Kinda agree with Dear ol' Mess here.
 

BoredBrandonPridham

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Aug 9, 2011
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But its needed to Fix the defense for opening night, not try and hang on for dear life until the TD and then use rental players to hope you get into the playoffs and save your season, and also go on a long playoff run.

You're strategy appears to put the outcome of his season on Dubas work at the trade deadline, and whom he can successfully add by paying overpaid prices in trade for perhaps rental players.

I believe you have your priorities backwards in that the focus should be to put yourself into the playoff running in the first 60+ games of the season and then use the TD only to add to a Cup run, but is the players that got you there, not the mystery boxes that may or may not materialize at the TD.

If Leafs are 10 points out of a playoff spot at the TD do you then suggest going all out with your free cap space in reserve and try and salvage the season, or hope for a lottery pick at that point?

I’d say you have to evaluate at that point who fell short and where that help is needed but again I think we overestimate the difference in value in lower tier NHL D getting UFA deals and top end cheap AHL D. That said if a good deal opens in IFA that involves needing to put Horton LTIR then I’m all over that, this is just more of a “no offseason” look at the impact of accumulating that space.

I think if Leafs think they can make the playoffs with the D they have then it’s worth holding off on using LTIR. And that’s not entirely out of the question that they would be able to make the playoffs with it.
 

Leafsfan74

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Jul 2, 2018
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Leafs are going for the Penguins school of Stanley Cups. Skilled, speedy forwards who can score, Reilly is our Letang and Andersen is our Fleury and pray the team defense system works out.

I don't think the Leafs D is as bad as many think, but it most certainly isn't as good as Dubas thinks.
 
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IBeL34f

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Jun 3, 2010
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I don't think Dubas tossed away a 1st round pick to not to use Horton LTIR starting in October from day #1 when he dealt Marleau.

The plan was either to use LTIR to cover most of Marleau's contract, or deal Marleau and use that potential of $5.3 mil max early to cover other salaries including Marner's new deal. IMO
Mess. This is not how LTIR works. Why are you still going on about this?

LTIR FAQ - CapFriendly - NHL Salary Caps
 
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WTFMAN99

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Jun 17, 2009
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Leafs are going for the Penguins school of Stanley Cups. Skilled, speedy forwards who can score, Reilly is our Letang and Andersen is our Fleury and pray the team defense system works out.

I don't think the Leafs D is as bad as many think, but it most certainly isn't as good as Dubas thinks.

The 2nd cup on the back to back year easily had the worst group of defenseman (on paper) that I had seen probably since the Hurricanes won.
 
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Stephen

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Feb 28, 2002
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Leafs are going for the Penguins school of Stanley Cups. Skilled, speedy forwards who can score, Reilly is our Letang and Andersen is our Fleury and pray the team defense system works out.

I don't think the Leafs D is as bad as many think, but it most certainly isn't as good as Dubas thinks.

Good on paper, but not sure the Leafs are battle tested to take that Pittsburgh model.
 

Heisen

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Mar 27, 2019
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I know if I was demote/promote hacked, I would demand every dollar I didn't earn back on the next contract, with interest and penalty. Or, I'll just go somewhere where I'm treated better. Dubas should be careful what systems he puts in place with his little spreadsheets.
 

AllDay28

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Oct 15, 2015
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Nicely done.

That D though..... ooof

who knows tho. every year young players become studs and maybe its Liljegren and Rosen's time to step up and be better than expected. Liljegren did have top pick potential before an annoying illness so if he can get back to that, I dont expect big things but at least competent, nhl level defense.
 
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