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Whether it’s fair or not, Toronto has had some criticism that 4 forwards allocate roughly half of the cap for the team. Cap Friendly has next year’s roster showing 11 players signed with 26 million in cap space. Starting next year Matthews, Tavares, Marner and Nylander account for roughly 46.6 million of a projected 87 million dollar cap. That’s assuming a 4 million dollar increase which may be high. Originally it was 5-7, now down to 4.7, and with the players having to vote and Escrow being high could be 1-2 million.
Regardless, almost 47 million of an 87 million dollar cap in 2 centers and 2 wingers. Tavares only has one more year as does Marner. JT will be nearing the 35 year mark at the end of his deal. Add in 7.5m for Morgan Reilly and now you’re looking at almost 55 million of 87 million in 5 players. You have a generational talent in Matthews, Tavares is a player every team wanted, Marner can make plays and dangle like no one’s business, and Nylander can get rolling and go big. Those forwards are highly paid for a reason. So, what do you do?
There’s some consensus over the past couple of years from the comments section that you need a top center, a scoring winger, a top D pair and a goalie that can steal you some games. So, on a team of 20-23 people how does that work in percentages? Though it’s relevant to some players, let’s ignore the “tax advantages… of some of the markets and just look at the structure. Yzerman did a very good job of selling the team vision in Tampa. As he was asked to take his last year off (not committing to an extension) more contracts started coming up. Now we see that each year choices have to be made and players can get higher dollars in other markets once they have some hardware. It gets harder to “keep the band together… when the cap ceiling doesn’t move along with inflation.
So, I’d like to see your thoughts on this. Is Toronto’s formula the eventual winning strategy? Do you need leaders to give up some pay to allow for better depth? Tavares left money on the table in San Jose by many accounts. As the Wings improve, Seider is going to get a nice raise. Raymond is going to get a bump. We don’t know who else in the pipeline will be the next “big ticket… but it feels like all eyes are on Danielson.
Fill up the comments and let’s see if we can virtually solve the cap puzzle.