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These numbers were lazily lifted from Reddit, but the Leafs have over $16 million for next season. What should they do with it?

Unrestricted Free Agents - Salary:

Roman Polak - $2,250,000

Brian Boyle - $2,000,000

Matt Hunwick - $1,200,000

Curtis McElhinney - $800,000

Ben Smith - $675,000

Restricted Free Agents:

Nikita Zaitsev - $925,000

Zach Hyman - $900,000

Connor Brown - $686,667

Coming off the books for next season - $8,300,000

Projected cap space - $16,340,833

Oh, also this:

They'll definitely have to be responsible with the way they spend it. Matthews, Nylander and Marner will all be getting big contracts in a couple years and they need to avoid anchor contracts that can get in the way. And then theres also Gardiner who's contract will be up soon, and he's gonna get a raise too. Brown is another guy who will get a healthy raise soon. We already know Zaitsev is gonna be making 4.5 mill for the next while.

I think they should trade JVR. Dont know if they'd be able to get a top 4 for him, but either way they'll be able to get something valuable for him.

I like Bozak, great faceoff man which helps a lot. Has put up points, defensively he's not great tho. But I think he's clearly a 2nd line center. But with Willy potentially making the shift over to center, he might not be needed and his cap might be better spent somewhere else.

Id be cool with them bringing back Boyle. Ideally they start next year with at least 2 guys who are great at winning faceoffs like Boyle and Bozak are.

At least one more top 4 dman needed. Ideally someone who is defensively responsible, can make a good first pass and skate. I dont think Shattenkirk is that guy.

Should be an interesting offseason.

I'd look to trade JVR, and acquire some defensive depth. I wouldn't do a whole lot up front, we need to continue to let the kids develop and progress.

I'd probably just ride out JVR's final year. I think I prefer to keep those top 3 lines as close to what we had this year as possible and use the 4th line to work in younger guys that might be able to ready for a promotion the following year.

We need one top 4 D man to upgrade on Polack. We can use picks or prospects or use the UFA pool. Right now would actually be a good time to spend some of our prospect depth in a trade, even though that goes against the long-term conservative plan. Capitalize on the hype and rely on Hunter and some more clever KHL signings to fill the gaps in talent.

Don't really see anyone out there worth spending big bucks on.

Will the expansion draft affect the Leafs' cap space?

metafisical wrote:Will the expansion draft affect the Leafs' cap space?

No.

Leafs wont be losing anyone of much value in the expansion draft. Most of the Leafs best assets are exempt from the expansion draft.

I wonder if the Leafs will be able to snag a dman like Dumba from Vegas if they choose him. McPhee seems like he's going after picks, so maybe 17th OA + something else for him might work.

Then flip JVR for some picks/prospects.

No celebration posts on the first pick? jeesh. I've been following the draft hoping the Canucks draft a good player and Timothy Liljegren was one of the earlier prospects. Seems like a steal getting him at 17th.

That seems like awesome value. But NHL teams are pretty smart when it comes to drafting and drop players for a reason. So I assume his mono or his game brings a lot of risk

^^Oh yeah there must be risk. Plus it seemed like the kind of draft with lots of options to choose from. Nice pick nonetheless.

Dr Positivity wrote:That seems like awesome value. But NHL teams are pretty smart when it comes to drafting and drop players for a reason. So I assume his mono or his game brings a lot of risk

Scouts get stuff wrong all the time.
Just last draft Chychrun fell hard and proceeded to be a beast in his rookie season.
Liljegren falling was prolly a combination of him getting sick, followed by mediocre performance and quite honestly some teams being better at properly scouting europeans than others. Add in that some people think he has questionable hockeysense (it looks to me like its more he was trying to do too much and put himself into bad spots rather than being dumb).

His skillset is as elite as anyone in the draft.

Speed, hands and shot.

One of the Leaf blogs did a pretty informal analysis of highly ranked defensemen that slid on draft night, and they all ended up NHL defensemen and often were as good as originally projected. I feel comfortable with the pick because of the Leafs' Swedish scout is well-regarded and Nylander was considered a 1st overall candidate as well prior to his draft year. There's just no denying the kid's skill level is elite, he's not undersized and he showed well in the combine.

Leafs sign Marleau, 3 years, 6.25 AAV full NMC

Not a fan of this contract at all.

Im going to assume that this isnt as short sighted as I feel like it is, and that they have a plan for that third year.

I keep waiting for the Leafs to finally acquire that stud defensemen they've been coveting since the Sundin era, and I'm always let down.

Man idk. Seems like a crazy amount for an old player but I guess he can be a good vet leader. I guess the Leafs are trying to win the Stanley Cup in the next few years when their players are cheap

They added him and Hainsey for nothing. Even if it fails miserably, they'll still have Marner, Nylander and Matthews on the right side of 25. The cap eventually will be mitigated by the Leafs ability to draft replaceable talent. What these two vets add is a stall in the process, so that they're making prospects like Bracco/Grundstrom, Dermott be a lot further along in development when they hit the NHL. They got really lucky last year, but had a lot of older rookies like Brown, Carrick, Hyman, Kapanen, Zaitsev surround their high end rookies. And they still were a nightmare defensively. Anyway, that lines up more with how Lou and Babcock have always run things. I don't see it as going for it rather than slowing down the pipeline. We spent a full season with Hyman as a first liner. He might not even have a spot on the 4th line now.

I like Marleau a lot and could see him fitting in right next to Matthews next year. Even at 38 he scored 27 goals last year. I just don't like paying anyone on the wrong side of 30 that much money. JVR comes off the books next year and his salary is likely now replaced by this deal.

They are getting amazing value out of Kadri now. It will be more interesting what happens when Matthews is extended, especially after seeing the deal McDavid signed.