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The fallacy of the offer sheet scenario; Leafs vs. Capitals

October 13, 2018, 12:57 PM ET [524 Comments]
Mike Augello
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The Toronto Maple Leafs finish off a very successful four-game road trip in Washington with a tough test against the Stanley Cup champion Capitals at Capital One Arena on Saturday. It is a match of the two most successful offenses in the NHL, with the Leafs leading the league with eight points (4-1-0 record) and 25 goals (averaging five goals per game), while Washington is second with 18 goals and 2-1-1 after a 6-0 loss to New Jersey on Thursday.

Washington will go with Braden Holtby in goal and are expected to go head-to-head with Auston Matthews and John Tavares (who have combined for 60% of the Leafs goals so far) with the center duo of Evgeni Kuznetsov and Niklas Backstrom.

Mike Babcock will go with Frederik Andersen for the third straight game and has tinkered with their lineup slightly after a bad third period performance in Detroit on Thursday. Rookie Igor Ozhiganov will sub in for Martin Marincin, who was on the ice for two goals against the Wings, and Andreas Johnsson will get back into the lineup after being a healthy scratch the last two games, replacing Tyler Ennis on the fourth line with Josh Leivo and Frederik Gauthier.

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The Leafs have been scorching to start the season and fans are understandably excited at the prospect of them having a successful run for several years, but the chatter regarding the impasse with restricted free agent William Nylander and concerns of impending contracts for Matthews and Mitch Marner are serving as a wet blanket.

We have heard scenarios of Matthews possibly being offer sheeted next summer by Arizona or other teams doing the same to Marner to put the Leafs in a cap crunch, and there has been speculation that Matthews will be looking to top Connor McDavid’s league-high $12.5 Million AAV on his new deal.

How promising Toronto’s future is will depend on some deft work by GM Kyle Dubas, but the Leafs young GM has more maneuverability in 2019 than many think. Toronto has five restricted free agents next summer in Matthews, Marner, Ozhiganov, Kasperi Kapanen and Andreas Johnsson and five unrestricted free agents in Jake Gardiner, Ron Hainsey, Marincin, Par Lindholm and Tyler Ennis and a projected available cap space of just over $30 Million, but they also have the buffer of the final year Nathan Horton’s contract.

The injured winger’s salary has not been placed on long-term injured reserve for most of the time since being swapped for David Clarkson in February 2015, but that could happen this season if Dubas looks to add pieces to help Toronto in a Cup run and next season if things get tight against the cap.

Offer sheets are seldom made in the NHL (the last one was Ryan O’Reilly in 2013) and that will likely remain the case, but a franchise cornerstone such as Matthews or Marner would be tempting to other clubs. One factor is that the player has to agree to signing an offer sheet. In the case of O’Reilly, it came after missing nearly two months of the 2013 season and Colorado quickly matched it.

In the unlikely scenario that Matthews and/or Marner would go that direction, Toronto would be able to match an offer sheet, since they can go over the cap by 10% during the summer (with the current one, that means $7.95 Million). The club has to be under the cap ceiling at the start of the regular season, but that is when they could put Horton on LTIR and open up most of his $5.3 Million salary.

There will be a tight squeeze one way or the other when it comes to the salary cap next season, which may be alleviated slightly by it going up, (it increased by $2 Million for 2017-18 and $4.5 Million this season) but the end result could be that the Leafs will have to make decisions to move on from some players.

Gardiner is making $4.025 Million this season and after scoring 52 points last season, the 28-year-old will be well positioned to make big money next summer from a team looking for a puck rusher/power play QB. Hainsey is 37 and in the final year of a two-year, $6 Million deal and has shown signs of beginning to slow down.

If sophomore Travis Dermott continues to improve, it is possible that his move to the top four could make Gardiner available as a rental before the trade deadline or a move Hainsey to the bottom pairing. Barring a new “hometown discount” deal for Gardiner close to his current salary, the cap space having to be allocated to Matthews and Marner make his return unlikely.

The other factor for next season is what the Leafs sign Nylander for. The current impasse shows that Toronto will not succumb to the winger’s demands and he has yet to come off his asking price of over $8 Million per season. The compromise could be a two-or-three year bridge deal at a lesser amount (less than $5 Million per season) which would end the stalemate, lock in Nylander at a manageable number and push the contractual showdown down the road, but getting the 22-year-old signed at a good number on long-term deal would provide cost certainty and make him a more valuable asset to trade if the Leafs choose to go that direction.

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