Summer Time Snapshot

Yes, we’re all excited about the playoffs and the entertainment that those 7 games bring to Leafs Nation each year, but for a moment I thought it would be fun to take a short look at what the Leafs have to look forward to in terms of capspace and change this summer. So let’s get right into it.

All of the contract information I’m about to use is from our good friends over at puckpedia.com. It’s a fantastic resource and they really stepped things up when capfriendly closed it’s doors. If you haven’t visited their site I’d strongly encourage you to do so. Meanwhile, I’ll use some contract projections from AFPAnalytics.com. Once again, just a fantastic resource that I highly recommend you check out.

As of this moment the Leafs have the following players signed for the 2025/26 NHL season:

Forwards: Auston Matthews, William Nylander, Max Domi, Scott Laughton, Bobby McMann, Calle Jarnkrok, David Kampf
Defense: Morgan Rielly, Chris Tanev, Jake McCabe, Brandon Carlo, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Simon Benoit, Philippe Myers
Goaltenders: Anthony Stolarz, Joseph Woll

That total works out to be 7 forwards, 7 defenders and 2 goalies, which means they need just 5 forwards to have a complete roster. Ryan Reaves and Matt Benning are also signed for next season but their future with the club is murky at best. Benning is in the minors at the moment and has been since he was acquired in a trade that sent Timothy Liljegren to San Jose earlier this season. Reaves has also been sent to the Marlies but it’s possible that he could be back with the team this year or next. I haven’t listed him against the cap because, in my opinion, if you’re willing to send him to the minors once to clear capspace to help build your team into a contender, then you’re willing to do it again and we’re going to try to look at gaining as much capspace as possible for the sake of this discussion. Their contracts are eating up a combined $300K worth of capspace.

Pending UFA: Mitch Marner, John Tavares, Max Pacioretty, Steven Lorentz, Alex Steeves (Group 6 UFA), Jani Hakanpaa
Pending RFA: Matthew Knies, Pontus Holmberg, Nicholas Robertson

As of this moment, the team is sitting with $27,485, 231 in capspace to round out their roster. That, at a glance, doesn’t seem like a problem at all. The blueline is full, the goalies are taken care of and they have 5 spots left to fill up front.

The issue is this; if we use conservative estimates and assume that the star player on the team return (Marner, Tavares, Knies) then that capspace could be eaten up very quickly. For a moment we’ll assume that Marner will take the same contract as Mikko Rantanen just took in the tax-free state of Dallas and then we’ll laugh and we’ll laugh and we’ll laugh….. he won’t… let’s not imagine that but instead we’ll tack on half a million per season and imagine that he doesn’t completely gouge the Leafs. Rantanen’s AAV is $12M per season, which makes it reasonable to believe that Marner will get at least $12.5M per season. John Tavares is a tricky one, because his age, dedication to the team and the possibility of deferred payments has some people wondering if his AAV could dip to, or below, the $5M per season mark. I think this is unrealistic for a player that has 55pts in 56 games this season, but again, we’re going to try to go with conservative estimates so let’s assume those people are right and mark him down for $5M per season. For what it’s worth my personal estimate for him is $7M for 3 years, while AFPAnalytics has him at $8m for 3 years. Lastly we have Matthew Knies, who is also in a spot that’s difficult to predict for a number of reasons. For starters he’s RFA and doesn’t have arbitration rights, so the team has the leverage here, but his next deal is also going to be based largely on what kind of term they agree upon. If he signs a short deal (2 years), AFPAnalytics has his AAV at a touch under $4M per season. If both the team and player want to reach for a 7-8 year deal that AAV could skyrocket, potentially making him the 4th highest paid member of the Leafs behind Matthews, Marner and Nylander. For now we’ll continue to go with the best case scenario and say he returns for $4M per season.

With 3 conservative estimates, the Leafs have already spent $21.5M of their $27.5M in capspace, leaving just $6M to fill 2 more roster spots and create some type of meaningful change to the team (i.e. one more legitimate top 6 LWer). If they decide that they want an extra few years of Matthew Knies before they renegotiate, that $6M could easily dwindle by $2-3M, which, in theory, would give them just enough capspace to backfill the roster.

The end result will be this: If the Toronto Maple Leafs don’t make a deep playoff run this season and they want meaningful change in the summer, that means doing one of two things.

1) They simply allow Mitch Marner to walk. He, far more than Tavares and Knies, will take a chunk of capspace from the team and could feasibly be replaced by one player that makes $8M and another that makes $4.5M and that’s without dipping into the previously mentioned $6M in capspace that we had after we signed the three stars. You have to hope that they land the right players in this situation and while it’s easy to say “just sign Sam Bennett and/or Nikolaj Ehlers” there will be 31 other teams vying for their services while, once again, we’re envisioning a Leafs team with a group of stars that just failed to show up once again. If they want to win, why would they come here to do it?

2) While the first scenario is the easiest, this one is a little more messy. If they believe that Marner is part of the solution but want to change the group dynamic, then signing him and asking somebody else to waive their NMC is their only recourse. Considering the Leafs’ captain is one of the best goal scorers in the game (and their captain!!) it’s unlikely that Auston Matthews is the one that’s asked to leave. John Tavares could be allowed to walk, but he’s a near PPG 2C that is projected to make a fair contract, so is letting him go just to usher in change a wise decision? If you say yes, then I won’t disagree, but I would also like to point out that he has the second highest PPG rate of all pending UFA centres this season, behind only Matt Duchene. On top of that, if you want to move on from the 34 year old Tavares because he is aging, which means he could start to decline, then replacing him with other pending UFA’s such as a 34 year old Duchene, 33 year old Mikhail Granlund or 33 year old Brock Nelson makes little sense as well. There is just one more 2C that is set to hit the market and that is, once again, Sam Bennett. In short, if you walk away from Tavares you should be ready to overbid for Bennett to ensure you land him, or give up assets to obtain a 2C that’s already under contract elsewhere. If not Marner, Matthews or Tavares, the only players left that can change the dynamic of the team are William Nylander and Morgan Rielly.

I will point out what some are probably thinking and that’s that moving on from secondary player’s to incite change is possible. Max Domi, David Kampf and Calle Jarnkrok top the list of players that could open up capspace so they can add elsewhere, as they combine for $8.25M towards the cap. If the stars fail to produce, however, it’s not just these players that management should point to. For once it has to be the stars that pay the price for the teams failures. With that said, it’s my opinion that the easiest route is often the one most followed and Mitch Marner will be the fall guy in my little doomsday scenario.

So, when you tune into the 1st round this spring, do so with this in mind; this one should mean everything to the likes of Marner, Nylander, Rielly and Tavares, above anybody else. It’s unlikely that Auston Matthews will be the one that moves on if they don’t advance, but the other 4 stars are in a unique position where it’s easy to envision this being their last hoorah as a Maple Leaf if things don’t go the way we all want them to.