Speculation: "Nylander may have to be traded"
- Thread starter ottomaddox
- Start date
Yes, they will undoubtedly have some tough choices. I can assure you that trading one of the best contracts on the roster in Kadri for futures is not the best way of doing that.
They may be forced to trade Marleau with an incentive (though a 27 goal two-way winger isn't going to need much incentive attached) to get those $6.25m off the cap. They will not be able to keep a roster of $2m depth forwards in Hyman, Brown, Kapanen, and Johnsson. Brown could very easily get traded. A roster player is going to get claimed by Seattle when the time comes (Brown's a good candidate there). Carrick won't be back if we're paying him $1.8m on the third pair.
Using your numbers and some high estimates
Johnsson (2.5m) - Matthews (11m) - Nylander (6.5m)
Hyman (2.25m) - Tavares (11m) - Marner (9m)
Leivo (1.25m) - Kadri (4.25m) - Kapanen (2.5m)
Grundstrom (ELC) - 4th line C (1.25m) - Jooris (1m)
That's 51.25m for the forwards
On defense
Rielly (5m) - xxxx (7m)
Gardiner (6m) - Zaitsev (4.5m)
Dermott (ELC) - Liljegren (ELC)
That's ~24.5m on the defense, while adding a $7m top pairing RHD
Andersen (5m)
Backup (900k)
That's 5.9m for goalies.
51.25+24.5+5.9 = 81.625m
81.625m is only 2.15m more than the current cap of 79.5m. That is assuming a Marleau trade with no salary coming back (the biggest leap), Hainsey walking, Brown leaving with no salary coming back (not a big leap at all), Carrick leaving with no salary coming back (not a big leap) and high end contracts for Marner/Matthews.
There's a pinch there and difficult decisions in the future (like Dermott's contract and imbalance between right and left side), but shipping out Marleau alone solves 90% of the issue and leaves room for a high end defender. Of course we'd love to keep Brown and Marleau if we had the space, but secondary pieces will always get shuffled around to keep the core intact. The LW is pretty light on salary and there's three ELC's on the roster, but it's still an extremely potent offense and is far from a skeleton crew on defense. The Marlies were the AHL champs, so that bottom of the roster depth really isn't a problem either.
I think you missed Horton and Kessel in there.
Plus I don’t see Marleau being moved. He moved his family across and to a new country to play for the leafs. Don’t see why he would want to go anywhere.
ACC1224
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Have to look elsewhere to save some coin, barring career ending injury Marleau is not going anywhere.
I did miss Kessel. That adds 1.2m and brings them up to 3.35m over the 2018-2019 cap in 2019-2020. If the players use the 5% escalator that's 3.975m, giving the Leafs 600k cap space. Horton goes on LTIR and grants cap relief, so he's not particularly relevant unless we are worrying about carrying forward the ELC bonuses. That is a concern, but it's a different one.
Marleau moved his family to a new country and made $18.75m for three seasons of work. Once his signing bonus has been paid out for the third year, he'll be owed $1.25m in actual salary. He can be traded just about anywhere that has cap space and unless he slows down massively, he will still be a very effective player.
If you've got some hotline to the Marleau household and can share some insider details, by all means, do tell.
However, if they can't ship out Marleau that probably just means Gardiner walks and Kapanen gets traded as well.
Johnsson (2.5m) - Matthews (11m) - Nylander (6.5m)
Hyman (2.25m) - Tavares (11m) - Marner (9m)
Marleau (6.25m) - Kadri (4.25m) - Leivo (1.25m)
Grundstrom (ELC) - 4th line C (1.25m) - Jooris (1m)
That's 55m for the forwards ($3.75m higher than my previous estimate)
On defense
Rielly (5m) - xxxx (7m)
Dermott (ELC) - Zaitsev (4.5m)
Borgman (ELC) - Liljegren (ELC)
That's ~19.5m on the defense, while adding a $7m top pairing RHD
Andersen (5m)
Backup (900k)
That's 5.9m for goalies.
Kessel retention $1.2m
55+19.5+5.9 +1.2 = 81.6m
That puts the Leafs at $2.1m above the 2018-2019 cap and assumes Gardiner walking and Kapanen being traded. At this point, the Leafs have traded Brown and Kapanen for futures and have let Gardiner and Hainsey walk, while still adding a $7m defenseman.
If the cap goes up by 3.975, that gives the Leafs $1.875m in space to work with. If they can get just $2m in discounts between Marner and Matthews (7.5 and 10.5) that's 3.875m in space. 9m for Marner is nuts unless he is an Art Ross contender this year. If they were to get Spurgeon or Tanev as their top pairing RHD's that saves 1.8m (Spurgeon) or 2.55m (Tanev), giving them 5.675 or 6.425 in cap space, which allows them to keep Gardiner.
Rielly - Spurgeon
Gardiner (6m) - Zaitsev
Dermott - Liljegren
That's a very good defense for just 22.687. Marleau comes off the books the year after that, which makes a raise for Spurgeon and Dermott easily affordable.
None of the above is easily done. Shipping out Kapenen and Brown for futures makes the Leafs a weaker team in 2019-2020. There is absolutely a pinch. But rearranging the deck chairs while keeping the core intact isn't particularly hard if a few things go right. If you're going to assume that the Leafs get screwed for max dollars on Matthews, Nylander, and Marner, while being forced to keep Marleau and giving a substantial raise to Gardiner, then no, it won't all fit. But sheesh, there are so many possible ways for the Leafs to fix this if they make just a few shrewd moves.
Connor McConnor
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6x6 would be a fair deal for both sides at this point in time considering Pasta f***ed the winger market by signing a below market value deal.
ACC1224
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Marleau has a NMC and no motivation to waive it.
Not an Insider detail, it's common knowledge.
Willy Stylez
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Jared Dunn
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Well I mean you got really wordy but at the end of the day it looks like we agree on the dollar figure regardless lol
As noted above, Marleau has a full NMC and I doubt he's going to waive it.
Also, your roster has only 20 players. They will need 3 more contracts to meet the minimum roster, so you can add another $2M in cap hit.
Borgman and Liljegren have bonuses totaling about $1.2M, which they might well reach if they are part of the top-6.
Kadri's cap hit is 250k higher than you've listed.
So, you can add another $3.5M to your cap hit (up to around $85M), and that's with the dubious assumption that Marleau waives his NMC and can be traded without retention. Hard to imagine which team would take on Marleau's $6.25M as a 39 year old winger, even if he waives.
I don't think a 6 year deal for Nylander really should go over 6-6.25m based on comparables
The post you quoted included the math where Marleau stays. As a result, I removed Kapanen and considered letting Gardiner walk.
At this point you are assuming:
Matthews gets 11m
Marner gets 9m
Borgman and Liljegren get their bonuses
Marleau will not waive his NTC
The Leafs add a defenseman who costs $7m (Ellis just signed for $6.25)
Gardiner signs for $6m (see Ellis)
All of these assumptions to bring the Leafs up to 85m and they're still only 1.5m over the cap if the 5% escalator max is used (3.975m brings the cap to 83.475m).
If Marleau waives, the problems are totally solved.***
If they can get 2m in discounts between Matthews, Marner, Nylander, and Gardiner, they're under.
If they get a 5m defenseman (like Spurgeon) to shore up the right side, they're under.
If they let Gardiner walk or include him in the trade for a RHD and Dermott succeeds on the 2nd pair, they're under.
If the cap remains stagnant or a smaller escalator value is used, re-signing their RFA's like Johnsson, Marner, and Matthews will reflect that and they're very close to under.
If you assume every single negative result that you possibly can, the Leafs are still within a few million dollars of being cap compliant while having their entire core locked up long term. If the Leafs manage just one or two shrewd moves, they're good to go. It's absolutely a pinch, there's lots of tough decisions like losing Kapanen+Brown and what to do with Gardiner. But we've got a checklist of about seven things that need to go wrong before we get to the point where trading Nylander becomes a good option.
***Marleau scored 27 goals this year and is still a very good two-way player. Once his signing bonus is paid in 2019-2020, he is only owed 1.25m in actual salary for the year. I do not believe that he would require very much sweetener for a low budget team to take him on for the one year, especially if he's still a quality player. If we have to attach a first to move him, that's an easy decision to keep the core intact.
Tavares to Marner
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even IF we had to trade Nylander big if
why are people acting like it's the end
if he goes for a similar young defensemen I can't see that being a bad thing though losing him would hurt
we'd be a good team either way
why are people acting like it's the end
if he goes for a similar young defensemen I can't see that being a bad thing though losing him would hurt
we'd be a good team either way
nickschultzfan
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Unless Marleau is traded, they have big issues. That's the bottom line. I could do a whole roster through Cap Friendly to illustrate, but I'll let someone else take the time...
Connor McConnor
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Not all that bad of a deal considering Nylander > Nino but both play a very different style game and I could see Nino's physical two-way play being valuable on the Leafs. Dumba > Liljegren more than makes up for Nylander > Nino but considering you'd also have to let Gardiner walk for salary cap reasons it becomes more like:
Tor gains:
Nino
Dumba
Tor loses:
Nylander
Liljegren
Gardiner
This looks less appealing for Toronto fans but isn't the worst trade proposal.
DanM
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TMLeafs17
Why so salty?
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Connor McConnor
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For value-sake, if they threw in a prospect like Louis Belpedio + 3rd rounder would you take that? I honestly think Toronto improves significantly in the short-term. Long-term would completely depend on how well Liljegren progresses. I think Belpedio could be a nice 2nd pairing PP guy if he continues to develop well.
Borgman will not be on an ELC in 2019/20. Lilly's performance bonuses are only 400K. The Leafs don't have to worry about Performance bonuses after this season.
DanM
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That would be pretty decent. I think we look at that for sure.
You are right though, it really depends on what Lily becomes, but the added prospect helps mitigate things.
Man it would be fun to do a real life deal. I am old school, a fan of hockey deals that help both clubs.
DanM
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It's not the worst deal ever. All the players involved are good pieces, but what Lily becomes would be the real mystery. It could be a good deal (maybe a prospect add on their end to help) or if Lily becomes a stud, it could be terrible.
Both teams would be taking a chance for sure.
Huh? I've already done that! You literally quoted the post that I made where we keep Marleau. I'll make some minor edits to the post for clarity and cut out the pointless bits, but the numbers are the same. I will update Kadri's number to be accurate.
If we add the 2m for the 3 extra roster players that puts the Leafs at 83.85m in total cap. With a 5% escalator, the cap is 83.475, meaning the Leafs are just 375k over. ELC bonuses can be paid out in subsequent years, they don't actually count against the cap that year.
Again, that gives the Leafs a whole lot of options for bringing their cap $'s down, even if Marleau doesn't waive
They can get a defenceman who costs less than 7m, for significant savings.
They can get a few hundred k in discounts across Matthews/Marner/Nylander's contracts and they're under
If the cap goes up 5.5%, they're under
They lose Kapanen, Brown, Hainsey, and Gardiner but add a top pairing RHD.
If they don't add a top pairing RHD and go with the same players as they did for 11th in GA this year, they're also cap compliant
Even in all of these scenarios where everything goes wrong, the Leafs are very close to cap compliant. You really must have a different definition of "big trouble" than I do.
