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One-year cap window will factor in Leafs off-season options

June 17, 2018, 8:53 PM ET [394 Comments]
Mike Augello
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Toronto Maple Leafs GM Kyle Dubas faces not only the challenge of re-signing restricted free agent William Nylander and attempting to get Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner locked up to extensions this summer, but the task of replacing a half dozen unrestricted free agents in Tyler Bozak, James van Riemsdyk, Leo Komarov, Dominic Moore, Tomas Plekanec and Roman Polak.

Bozak and van Riemsdyk are expected to get offers lengthier and well in excess of what the Leafs would be willing to put forth. There have been indications that the Leafs and Komarov’s representatives will hold talks before July 1, but it is not expected that Moore or Plekanec will be back to challenge for the fourth line center spot or the well liked Polak to play on the bottom pairing (unless Toronto strikes out in acquiring a top four blueliner via trade or free agency).

Some of these vacancies will be filled by young, inexpensive players like Josh Leivo, Andreas Johnsson, Kasperi Kapanen, Miro Aaltonen, Andreas Borgman and Calle Rosen looking and deserving an opportunity to play in the NHL, but other holes will have to be addressed from outside the organization.

As was discussed in Saturday’s column, the Leafs organizational depth is weakest and thinnest at center and while they could be addressed internally by shifting William Nylander to the middle and promoting either Aaltonen, Swedish import Par Lindholm or former first rounder Frederik Gauthier, there is no evidence that head coach Mike Babcock has confidence that Nylander can play center up to his standards or that someone else can be as good a fit with Matthews.

A big factor in Toronto’s summer strategy is the over $22 Million in available cap space they have for the 2018-19 season. This short term cushion gives Dubas flexibility to acquire players that other organizations may want to move or can’t re-sign because of their own cap constraints, but limits the Leafs to players with one year remaining or willing to sign a one-year deal.

On defense, the ability to sign or acquire a long term solution in the top four might be tied to Toronto moving Jake Gardiner’s $4.025 Million salary with one season left before he can walk in free agency.

At center, the options are more wide ranging. In free agency, the option that fits the Leafs situation best is 38-year-old Joe Thornton. The Leafs attempted to sign the veteran center last summer, but could not get both him and Patrick Marleau’s name on the dotted line. That may have been fortuitous, since Thornton had another season interrupted by a knee injury and surgery.

The former first overall pick indicated that he would be willing to re-sign in San Jose for a significantly reduced salary, but it is unknown whether GM Doug Wilson will choose to do that again with the extensions of Marc-Edouard Vlasic, Evander Kane and Martin Jones kicking in next season.

The only other possible short term UFA possibility could be veteran Valtteri Filppula, but his signing with the Leafs is unlikely, since he would not waive his no-trade clause to be moved from Tampa Bay to Toronto in 2017.

Taking into consideration the Leafs cap limitations, the Stars Jason Spezza (one year left at $7.5 Million) or Philadelphia’s Jori Lehtera (one year left at $4.7 Million) could be low cost options based on their teams looking to jettison a big cap hit.

The New York Post’s Larry Brooks indicated in his weekend Slapshot’s column that the Rangers might be willing to move center Vladislav Namestnikov.

Namestnikov could be the right fit for Toronto. After scoring 20 goals for Tampa, the 25-year-old Russian (whose father is a Toronto scout in Russia) was included in the blockbuster deal that sent Ryan McDonagh and JT Miller to the Lightning. Namestnikov scored only four points in 19 games with New York and the Rangers would have to extend him a qualifying offer of over $2 Million to retain his rights after July 1.

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