Lots to talk about, but we’ll have to start with the biggest news in the NHL this week. The salary cap.
Next season’s salary cap is officially set at $95.5M and you better believe that Mitch Marner’s agent, Darren Ferris, popped a bottle of champagne and celebrated all night after the announcement. It’s well known that player’s negotiate their contract’s based off percentage of the cap and when they last put pen to paper the percentage they agreed upon was 13.37%. Based off of a $95.5M ceiling and assuming they don’t ask for a raise (they will), that would put the next contract for Marner at $12,768,350 per season. That number would make Mitch the 3rd highest paid player in the NHL, behind teammate Auston Matthews and Edmonton Oilers forward, Leon Draisaitl. It’s very likely that Mikko Rantanen will end up in this range as well.
Again, that number is based off of them not asking for a raise. I think if Marner’s camp even hints at the possibility of them not receiving a raise then they’ll announce a contract extension within weeks. Don’t hold your breath.
Let’s predict that Marner maintains his childish “my only comparison is Auston Matthews” view from the previous negotiations for a moment. If they ask for the same raise as Matthews did, the new percentage for Marner would be 14.3%, bringing his caphit to $13,656,500 per season. Don’t punch your screen in disgust just yet.
Now for the Mitchiest of numbers. If Marner’s camp decides that they want the same percentage as Matthews currently has, which is 15.06%, the average will balloon to $14,382,300 per season. At a glance that looks like the worst case scenario, but the teams leading point producer could always ask for more, in theory.
I wrote about Marner’s next contract in this space before, but at the time the assumption was that the cap would go to $92M and there were no estimates after that. Based off of that projection, I made a prediction of $12.75M per season, but that’s looking a little low now. Not only is the cap set at $95.5M for next year, but they have released a 3 year estimate and things are about to change in terms of contract numbers. The 2026/27 season is estimated to have a cap ceiling of $104M, with the 2027/28 year getting another substantial raise to $113.5M. The question is this; can Marner’s camp now look at these hikes in the cap and ask for a much larger number, say in the $15-16M range and sell it as the Leafs only having to manage it for a year or two before the number starts to fall in line with the other stars around the NHL? Another scenario is that they follow in Matthews’ footsteps and ask for shorter term, which would allow them to take a bigger chunk of the pie again 3-4 years from now.
Which brings us to Auston, who is in the first of a 4 year contract. Talk about great timing for him, but not for the Leafs. His current contract will end after the 2027/28 season, which means that the cap will be in line for another boost above the current $113.5M estimate. While it’s impossible to predict what will happen that far from now, a safe bet would be that the ceiling won’t continue to rise by $7-10M season over season, but will return to $3-4M jumps at some point. With just a $4M bump it would bring the ceiling to $117.5M, which means that Matthews could easily demand $17.5M (15%) after his current contract, but that’s simply a starting point.
How does this effect John Tavares and his next contract? The lower he goes, combined with the rising cap, the better it is for the team.
I guess the point of all of this is that we’ll have to adjust our point of view in terms of what is considered a large number moving forward. While Leon Draisaitl’s contract is set to age very well, players such as Connor McDavid, Nikita Kucherov and Cale Makar are about to raise the bar for their fellow players.
Did I mention that Elliotte Friedman has stated that the 2026/27 and 2027/28 estimates are presumed to be a little low?
This announcement also came on the heels of Mikko Rantanen being traded away from the Avalanche. The issue was that Rantanen wanted a contract that went above MacKinnon’s current $12.6M caphit and they have set that as the bar within their organization; if you want more than MacKinnon, too bad. I wonder, did they know that this type of jump was coming? Would they undo that trade if they could? If they had “caved” and signed Rantanen last summer to what he was reportedly asking for, it would have aged well just like Draisaitl’s deal should. Furthermore, in 2 years are they expecting Cale Makar, who is considered by many to be the best defender in the game today, to negotiate based off of a contract that was signed under a completely different landscape?
Back to the Leafs.
Over the past year some of the players signed by the Leafs include William Nylander, Chris Tanev, Jake McCabe and Oliver Ekman-Larsson. I’ve been a firm believed that Nylander’s contract was far above what he deserved to make and that may prove to be true long term. However, if he can maintain his point per game status, then his deal will age well. The same can be said for Tanev, whose caphit was never out of line with what he brings to a team, but the 6 year term appeared to be too long. By the time his and McCabe’s contract’s are up, it’s possible that their current caphit’s will be more in line with what your average 3rd pair defender’s will make. This means that even with some regression, it’s possible that their contract’s will never be a real hindrance towards building a competitive team.
The question now lies within how they’re able to take advantage of this sharp increase and build a deeper, more complete roster than they ever have, and in short order.
Which brings me to what they need on this roster.
Obviously the 3rd line centre role has been talked about all season long and as it currently stands the Leafs don’t appear to have the capspace to fill anything more than a single hole on the roster. While trading has been in full swing around the NHL, the Leafs haven’t made any moves and outside of it being reported that they’re looking for a centre with term, there’s nothing solid in the rumour mill. The kicker here is that if you run through the teams that are currently sellers, it’s tough to find centres with term that fit a 3C role. Yes, there are players with term that play centre and are possibly available, but if we’re talking about somebody like Vincent Trocheck or Dylan Cozens, they can easily fit into the 2C category and the cost to acquire would reflect that. Considering the fact that Mikhail Granlund garnered a 1st round pick and is a pending UFA, you’d have to assume that trading for either of those players would be much more than that. With that said, once again, if you could get a player that has as much term as Trocheck (4 years after this one) or Cozens (5 years after this one) it would also mean obtaining a contract that should get better with age.
To begin the season it was assumed that the teams scoring depth was improved, but it’s as bad or worse than ever. That makes their swing at a 3C extremely important. If they want to go deep into the playoffs they can’t do it by relying on 2 lines to score all of their goals. It’s for this reason that I dismiss the suggestion of adding a player like Sean Kuraly to the group. He’s a fine player but he isn’t what they’re looking for at the moment. I still have Ryan O’Reilly as the most ideal fit for the Leafs right now. He checks all the boxes for the team. With that said, I’m going to assume that he wants to stay in Nashville for a while longer.
The other issue is that they still need to add another defender and it would be preferable if that acquisition could play in the top 4.
We’re now 3 games away from a break in the schedule for the 4-Nations Tournament and there are just 7 games after that until the March 7th trade deadline, so it’s not as if we’ll have to wait long to find out what they’re going to do, but there are still many questioning if they have the capacity to do much of anything at all.
Jani Hakanpaa has dropped out of the 4-Nations Tournament, which many were expecting. He has a caphit of $1.47M and has played just 2 games this season. Unless he returns for the playoffs and puts on a defensive clinic, we’ll call this one a massive miss for the front office.
Joseph Woll has posted 5 straight games with a 0.900SV% or above, with 4 of those games being above 0.913. It wasn’t long ago that I questioned his consistency and he responded by telling me to sit down and shut up (I assume he reads everything here). I will gladly do so.
Woll is also 5 games away from playing more games in a single professional season than ever before. I say he does it.
Nicholas Robertson continues to struggle to produce points. During the summer I suggested a 1-for-1 swap of him and Kaeden Korzcak, who has dressed for just 17 games so far for Vegas. I’d still pull the trigger on that deal, not that it was ever actually on the table.
With that said, I still have Jamie Oleksiak as a prime trade candidate if they try to acquire a defender. He’d fill the size requirement they wanted from Hakanpaa, the toughness they want from Reaves and can play top 4 minutes. The only downside is that they need some more offense from the blueline and he doesn’t bring much of that.