The next Leafs move will either be substantial, or far away

The salary cap and the collective bargaining agreement are interesting things. There are so many weird twists and nuances to what goes into a team’s active salary, from overages to retentions to long-term injuries, that the hockey community tends to be left confused, but not confused enough to decide not to argue their interpretation to the death.

Others will forego knowledge, but escalate straight to “Brandon Pridham and Lou Lamoriello know dark wizard magic tricks and will make anything possible”, while a quiet minority will reserve themselves to “I have no idea and won’t bother” philosophy, which is probably the most intelligent of them all. Thankfully, there are resources that provide context on some of these points, and one of those is popular salary tracking website CapFriendly.

This afternoon, their staff posted an interesting piece on the Leafs’ offseason cap space, specifically focusing on signing restricted free agent Connor Brown to the last outstanding contract on the team. It’s kind of funny that a rookie that’s been in the organization for half a decade, worked his way up, and potted 20 goals in his first NHL season would be the last man standing, but reality puts him in that very spot.

I won’t clip off too much of CapFriendly’s article, mostly because I want to encourage you to give it a full read, but their end conclusion is that the Leafs have about $82.1 million in commitments this year, and can only spend another $421,000 before hitting the offseason barrier of 110%.

This means that..

Alternatively, they could move Brown in the next trade as many have speculated over the past few months, but all indications from Lamoriello and Leafs management hint that he’ll be on the team next year.

It’s a very interesting situation for the Leafs to be in. One thing not mentioned in the CapFriendly article is that this leaves Toronto in a prime position to lose Brown to an offer sheet; they’d have a week to shed salary elsewhere to match the offer, should he sign with another team. They couldn’t defer to LTIR or pre-assigning a player to the minor leagues, and the league is presently between its two offseason buyout windows.

This, of course, assumes that a General Manager in this league would break away from the unwritten rules and offer the first offer sheet in four seasons (and five offseasons) to him and that the Leafs don’t already have a contract-in-principle in place with Brown waiting for the first moment of eligibility. I’d imagine that at least one of those two things is contradictory to reality, if not both.

Regardless, what’s clear is that there are two wildly different pathways the Leafs can go with this; either a summer of tension or another move that will likely feel less than minor.