For a long time, Toronto’s roster-building problem was easy to spot. The Maple Leafs had their stars paid, the cap stopped climbing, and the middle class of the roster got squeezed into a corner.
Auston Matthews, William Nylander, Mitch Marner and John Tavares were all signed with the expectation that the ceiling would keep rising. Instead, the flat cap turned those commitments into a headache.
Now the script is flipping. With the salary cap projected to climb sharply, Sportsnet’s Luke Fox says the same kind of locked-in money that once trapped Toronto is starting to look like an advantage.
The Leafs’ picture has changed in a few ways, of course. Marner is gone.
Tavares is on a much smaller number. And the current structure includes deals such as Kirill Marchenko at $12.5 million beginning next season and Darren Raddysh at $8.5 million per season over the next eight years.
Those are not bargain-bin contracts. But Fox’s point is that Toronto has already moved ahead of the cap spike that’s coming, and that matters.
He wrote, “When the cap soars to its projected $127.5 million in 2028-29, the Leafs are on track to already have six everyday forwards (Nylander, Tavares, Marchenko, Gavin McKenna, Nick Paul, Brandon Duhaime), both goalies (Sergei Bobrovsky, Stolarz), and their current top four defencemen (Darren Raddysh, Morgan Rielly, Chris Tanev, McCabe) all signed for $71 million total.”
Fox followed that up with, “That leaves $56.5 million to pay Auston Matthews or Connor McDavid? and fill in the gaps.”
There is still plenty to debate about a contract like Marchenko’s. Some will see that as the kind of deal that could age badly.
But the larger point is that Toronto avoided the kind of summer spending that can haunt a team for years. John Chayka didn’t go on a spree that boxed the club in.
He didn’t wind up in the same position as the Anaheim Ducks. He didn’t throw around huge salaries the way the San Jose Sharks did.
The moves made under former GM Brad Treliving also look better in this light. The re-signings of Matthew Knies, Jake McCabe, John Tavares, William Nylander and Anthony Stolarz now appear to be solid value, with Knies now in Columbus as part of the Marchenko trade.
Fox’s read is that Toronto is headed toward one of the league’s stronger cap setups by the time the cap reaches $127.5 million in 2028-29. Matthews still needs to be sorted out, but the Leafs should have room to handle it. Beyond Easton Cowan, there are no other contracts demanding immediate attention.
Whether Chayka eventually decides to do with Cowan what the Ducks did with Tristan Luneau - a six-year, $43.2 million deal for the defenceman - is still an open question. It does not have to happen now.
That decision can wait until next summer at the earliest. Chayka’s view on that kind of timing was blunt: “I was comfortable to sit that one out.”
He also made clear he enjoys the puzzle. “I love financial theory as a concept.
It’s shifting. And as things shift, people are trying to forecast and project growth.
And in any business, you try to get ahead of it, and there’s certain elements of being proactive.” He added, “Probably with some of these, we’re going to look back and teams are going to be really happy and excited.
Some of them will be OK. And probably some that you regret.
And who’s done a good job or not will probably dictate the success of their team moving forward.”
That’s the whole game now: getting the forecast right.
And for Toronto, the irony is hard to ignore. The franchise that was once flattened by the cap may be among the best positioned, outside of the Montreal Canadiens, for what comes next.
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The late push only added to the frustration. Toronto had a 6-on-5 power-play opportunity in the final moments, but the sequence never turned into the kind of sustained pressure the Leafs needed, and Hiller pointed to fatigue setting in as the clock wound down. It left the night with the same sour feeling that follows so many close losses: enough chances to change the result, not enough execution when it mattered most. [Read more 🡒]
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For Toronto, that matters because team-building questions never really go away in a cap system, they just change shape depending on the market. What used to look like a roster burden can suddenly look like cost certainty, and thats part of the contrast being drawn as the Leafs contract picture is viewed against a league where Edmonton is still hearing outside noise about Connor McDavids future, even if that speculation has little grounding in anything McDavid himself or the Oilers have indicated. [Read more 🡒]
Leafs Got An Opening Ottawa Could Not Afford To Give Away
Ottawas back end took a hit in the first period against the Maple Leafs when Jake Sanderson left the game injured and did not return. The status of the injury is still unclear, including whether it has anything to do with a previous issue, but his absence immediately changed the feel of the matchup and gave Toronto a chance to push the pace.
The Leafs wasted little time taking advantage, scoring twice in a row after Sanderson exited to grab a 2-1 lead. In a game where every shift mattered, Ottawa could not afford to lose one of its top defensemen, and Toronto quickly showed why those kinds of openings rarely stay closed for long. [Read more 🡒]