Leafs officially announce Kapanen and Johnsson extensions

According to the team’s official Twitter, the Maple Leafs have agreed to contract extensions for both Kasperi Kapanen and Andreas Johnsson. We’ve known about these deals for a few days now, but they’ve now officially been signed.

Kapanen’s deal is worth $3.2 million annually over the course of four years while Johnsson’s deal is worth $3.4 million annually over four years. Kapanen will still be a restricted free agent at the end of his deal while Johnsson will be able to hit the open market as an unrestricted free agent when his deal is over. You can view Toronto’s cap situation here.

With the two players making $6.6 million combined, Kyle Dubas managed to get both players signed for just a shade over the value of the final year of Patrick Marleau’s contract. With that in mind, you can kind of view trading the first round pick to dump Marleau as a trade to keep Johnsson and Kapanen.

It’s interesting to see Dubas isn’t waiting around for Mitch Marner anymore. I would have guessed a few weeks ago that Kapanen and Johnsson weren’t going to be signed to new deals until Dubas knew what Marner would be locked up for. Instead, Dubas got two key players to sign to solid contracts before Marner, ensuring that no team could ink either player to an offer sheet the Leafs couldn’t match assuming Marner came in at a high cap hit.

All eyes now shift to Marner, as if they weren’t there already.