Free agent John Tavares will finish out his interviews on Wednesday, meeting with the Tampa Bay Lightning and Dallas Stars, but numerous reports are indicating that there will be no further teams added to the mix and that the 27-year-old center will choose to return to the New York Islanders or leave to join the Boston Bruins, Stars, San Jose Sharks, Lightning or Toronto Maple Leafs.
TSN’s Darren Dreger reported on Tuesday that the Leafs pitch in Los Angeles, CA on Monday impressed Tavares and his representatives, but whether that will be enough to sway the Mississauga native to sign in Toronto, no one will know until he agrees to an eight-year deal to return to Long Island before the midnight deadline on Saturday or signs with one of the five suitors after 12 Noon Sunday.
If the Leafs are unsuccessful in their bid, GM Kyle Dubas will begin exploring other options to improve the club for the future and central to those options will be to work with the nearly $25 Million in available cap space available for 2018-19.
The limitation for Toronto is that they do not want to allocate anything past next season, with the contract extensions of Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner in the near future. One possible option is using the available space to take on a salary that another team wants to clear, for the purpose of getting another player.
The value of clearing salary has significant value, as was shown in the Capitals deal involving goaltender Philipp Grubauer. Washington did not have the cap space to re-sign Grubauer (who was a restricted free agent) and needed to clear room to re-sign defenseman John Carlson, so they moved the final year of Brooks Orpik’s contract ($5.5 Million) along Grubauer to Colorado for the lower-than-expected price of a second round pick.
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Buffalo took advantage of their cap room and Pittsburgh’s need for maneuvering room by acquiring winger Conor Sheary and former Leaf Matt Hunwick for a conditional mid-round pick. The Penguins cleared $5.25 Million over the next two seasons with the deal, which could create room to re-sign winger Jake Guentzel and possibly to add to the club this summer for another Cup run.
A team like Winnipeg could be in a similar situation this summer, with Connor Hellebuyck, Jacob Trouba, Adam Lowry restricted free agents and Paul Stastny an unrestricted free agent.
The Jets could be interested in moving the final year of defenseman Tyler Myers contract ($5.5 Million), who would be a good fit for the Leafs top four as a right hand shot, but the price might be to also take on goalie Steve Mason’s final year at $4.1 Million.
While this may not the move that happens, a trade similar to this using the Leafs cap room may be the method that Dubas uses to plug the holes that need to be filled to make Toronto more competitive.
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