The Toronto Maple Leafs are staring at a cap squeeze, and the biggest reason is sitting right in front of them: a hefty chunk of money tied up in aging veterans.
Toronto is already just under $3-million over the salary cap and still needs to get compliant before the season opens. That’s happening in a summer that has looked very different from the club’s recent offseasons.
Instead of the usual quiet approach, John Chayka has been moving fast - contract after contract, trade after trade - while the team has added depth pieces, improved its goaltending, signed Gavin McKenna, and reportedly still has more work to do. The catch is that more moves will require more money to come off the books.
The issue is that nearly a quarter of the cap is already spoken for by four players who are 34 or older. John Tavares, 35, carries a $4.39-million hit.
Oliver Ekman-Larsson, 34, is at $3.5-million. Chris Tanev, 36, comes in at $4.5-million.
And newcomer Sergei Bobrovsky, 37, is at $7-million. Altogether, that’s $19.39-million tied to older players.
Two of those contracts stretch all the way to 2030, with Tavares and Tanev both signed through that point. By then, both players will be in their 40s, and even with the cap rising, those deals can still box a team in if money is locked up and there’s nowhere clean to move it.
Age is only part of the problem. Decline comes with the territory, and while Tavares and Ekman-Larsson have held off that slide, Tanev has not. He also comes with major injury concerns, yet Toronto is still expected to lean on him as a top shutdown defenseman after an 11-game season.
Tanev’s contract stands out as the one that should make the most people uneasy. He arrived in a sign-and-trade on a six-year deal with a $4.5-million AAV, and Brad Treliving handed a 34-year-old with injury issues a $27-million contract plus trade protection.
That’s a tough setup from the start. Tanev was excellent in his first year, but after multiple injuries limited him to 11 games last season, it’s hard to bank on him returning to his 2024-25 form.
Bobrovsky’s deal carries risk too. He has had injury problems, though those appear to be behind him, and Toronto is paying $7-million to a goaltender who is about to turn 38 and is coming off his worst season in a while.
Still, there’s no denying the level of player the Maple Leafs are getting. Bobrovsky is elite, one of the best goalies in the world, and his three-year cap hit looks better than Tanev’s when you weigh the actual performance.
That said, it’s still a lot of money for an aging core, and it only adds to the pressure on Toronto’s cap sheet. The team may have reasons to feel better about Tavares and Ekman-Larsson, especially with Tavares aging well and Ekman-Larsson turning back the clock in his two seasons there. But the bigger picture remains the same: with more money needed for bigger moves down the line, these contracts could become a real headache in 2028.
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Pittsburgh, meanwhile, is in a position where it may have to weigh what its future roster looks like against the value of keeping veterans in place. Bryan Rust has come up as a name worth watching in that discussion, especially with his contract running through 2028 and no trade protection attached, but the cost to pry him loose would not be small. If the Leafs are going to make a real swing, they may need to decide whether to part with more than just a pick to get the kind of forward they have been missing. [Read more 🡒]
Maple Leafs May Finally Have A Shot At The Blue Line Fix
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For Toronto, the appeal is obvious: a chance to add a young, high-end defenseman without waiting for the market to dry up elsewhere. Nothing is official, and the talks remain firmly in the realm of possibility, but the fit is the kind that tends to linger around this time of year, especially for a team still searching for a cleaner answer on the back end. [Read more 🡒]
Blue Jackets Fans Wont Love Why Werenski Is Back In Trade Talk
Matthew Knies has become one of the more interesting names in the Maple Leafs orbit because his combination of age, role and contract control gives Toronto something every team wants and few are eager to move. Even with reports that the Leafs have at least listened on him, the asks they have been weighing have been substantial enough to show just how much value he carries, especially for a club that is always trying to balance present urgency with future flexibility.
That is why the speculative trade chatter keeps circling back to big names, from Dylan Larkin to Zach Werenski to Connor Hellebuyck, even if none of those possibilities is close to real. The Werenski idea, in particular, comes with its own obvious hurdle because Toronto would need more than just a willing trade partner, and the price would not be light. For now, Knies remains in Toronto, but the fact that he is still being discussed at all says plenty about how aggressively the Leafs are at least exploring their options. [Read more 🡒]