Leafs come up with crazy plans to respect salary cap!

The Toronto Maple Leafs’ roster construction always meant they were likely to face some salary cap issues down the road and you just know they are still in a cap crunch. 

On Tuesday night, the Leafs avoided arbitration, signing Ilya Mikheyev to a two-year contract and we could already hear numbers crunching some more in Toronto. 

Senior hockey writer Frank Seravalli explained on TSN’s Insider Trading what the Leafs might be forced to do during the 2020-21 season if they want to respect the flattened cap limit that was set due to the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“Their plan is to stay at as close to 20 players on the roster as possible. Maybe carrying 21 players on game day, shuttling a waiver exempt player down to the minors to accrue salary cap space at the beginning of the season on off days. And then after that, once they have some space banked up, then they can begin to get creative if need be later in the season. But guys, if there was going to be any point in which you want to try and budget to the minimum of the cap possible, it’s in this season because of the roster space considerations and the COVID-19 crunch. And who knows what next season is going to look like? You’re probably going to have some exempt cap players that are going to be travelling with your team at all times. So smart move by the Leafs in that case and that’s how they play to attack this at the moment.”

This may very well be a great spot to be in for the Maple Leafs, who might already be able to joggle all of the issues that are just starting to appear this season. 

Who knows what it might be like for years to come… 

However, for now, it remains that the Leafs are OVER.