The Toronto Maple Leafs locked up a key piece of their defensive corps Monday morning, announcing the signing of Jake McCabe to a five-year contract extension worth $4.51 million annually.
Since being acquired from the Chicago Blackhawks at the 2023 trade deadline, he’s become one of their most trusted defencemen and grossly outplayed the $2 million cap hit he cost with his retained salary. So, to have him for another five years at what’s essentially a raise of $500,000 with the implication that the cap will rise is a pretty team-friendly deal for the Leafs. According to TSN’s Chris Johnston, there’s a sense that he left money on the table to remain a Leaf, which is always something that will sit well with the fanbase.
Jake McCabe’s extension with the #leafs includes some deferred money, which lowered the cap hit to $4.51M. Fair to say he left some money on the table here.
— Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) October 28, 2024
“It’s really exciting for me and my family,” McCabe told media Monday before their game against the Winnipeg Jets. “We’ve loved our time in Toronto thus far, and to be able to sign out for another five years is super exciting for us.”
The McCabe extension more or less sets their top four in stone for the next couple of years. Morgan Rielly and Chris Tanev are locked up through the 2029-30 season, and Oliver Ekman-Larsson is signed through 2027-28. While this top-four is objectively the among best that the Leafs have had during the Auston Matthews era, there’s been a little concern over the age of these players, or rather, how old they’ll be towards the end of their contracts. Rielly is 30, McCabe is 31, Ekman-Larsson is 33, and Tanev is 34, so it’s a fair conversation to have, but here’s the reality of the situation. The Maple Leafs are signing these deals thinking about the back half of the contract, and frankly, they shouldn’t be.
Through the first ten games of the season, their defence has generally been an improvement from last season. They’re currently 16th in goals-against per game and their penalty kill is currently 13th out of 32 teams, with McCabe and Tanev forming a shutdown pair and Rielly skating with Ekman-Larsson for an offensive zone start-heavy puck-moving pair. Rielly has skated with Tanev this season and McCabe with Ekman-Larsson as well, but one way or another, it’s been these four players absorbing most of the ice time. OEL, Rielly, and McCabe have contributed six, five, and four points respectively through the first ten games of the season, which is a refreshing change after the Leafs were dead last in scoring from their defenceman in 2023-24.
Jake McCabe, signed to a 5x$4.5M extension by TOR, is a steady top four two-way defenceman and penalty killer. #LeafsForever pic.twitter.com/2xuoZRC3Xo
— JFresh (@JFreshHockey) October 28, 2024
The point is that so far, the Leafs’ defensive corps is doing their jobs. And if you’re concerned about how the deals are going to look three years from now when OEL and Tanev are both in the back nine of their 30s, just know that if the Maple Leafs haven’t won anything, or at minimum haven’t made any meaningful progress, just know that those contracts won’t matter regardless.
We often refer to this iteration of the Leafs as part of the “Auston Matthews era”, and the reason he earns the namesake is that he’s the team’s number one centre, can score 60 goals, and can provide dependable play on both sides of the puck. If he’s a Leaf, they’re playoff contenders. If he’s not, they are not. That’s not to say that the team’s success lives and dies by Matthews, but the team will always be expected to contend for a Cup as long as he’s centring the top line. And when he signed a four-year contract extension in August 2023, he extended their Cup-contention window by four years.
Bear in mind that heading into the 2024-25 season, the Maple Leafs are already eight years into this chapter of their history with only one playoff round win to show for it. Funny how I said “Bear in mind” as if any Leafs fan isn’t aware of that. But it’s a good reminder that even though the Cup window extended when they re-signed Matthews, there’s still a hell of a lot of thin ice to be walked on. Mitch Marner is up for a new contract this offseason and how the Leafs fare in the playoffs this season will play a huge part in the direction they decide to go in there. John Tavares will need a new deal, too, but I can’t imagine his next deal will be one that takes up a significant portion of the cap, if he stays.
All of this is to say that the Leafs are no longer at a point where Matthews and Marner are rookies with their entire careers ahead of them, and worrying about signing aging players to contracts longer than three years simply isn’t something that will matter at this stage of their careers. It’s not as if four years from now, those two will be turning 25 years old with a back end of players who are old, slow, and taking up too much of the cap. If the Leafs haven’t won anything by the time Matthews’ contract expires, or haven’t at least made a couple of meaningful playoff runs to show that they can win more than five games after Game 82, then in all likelihood, the window is closed regardless.
I saw a lot of complaints online yesterday about the Leafs committing to such an ‘old’ defensive corps, and specifically singling out Brad Treliving for committing to too many defencemen on the wrong side of 30. While I understand the concern behind this, I’m not sure what the alternative was. The Lou Lamoriello and Kyle Dubas era produced a minimal amount of defenders who are currently or have contributed to this team in the past eight years. Sean Durzi has blossomed into a pretty good defenceman, but he was traded in a package for Jake Muzzin (who was also in his 30s at the time of his trade). Rasmus Sandin was 22 when he was traded at the same deadline McCabe was acquired. Timothy Liljegren, 25, hasn’t been able to carve out a consistent lineup spot and feels like he’s currently on the cusp of being traded. Outside of Topi Niemela, none of the prospect defencemen drafted during the Dubas era are threatening to crack the lineup anytime soon. And if it’s not obvious, good, solid defencemen in their mid-20s don’t exactly grow on trees.
To wrap this all up, I’ll leave you with a ‘too long, didn’t read’ summary of my point here. No, it’s not ideal that the Leafs’ entire top four is in their 30s. But considering the way things have shaped together in the past eight years, they really didn’t have much of a choice but to attack the issue in this way. And if it doesn’t work out by the time these defencemen reach the back half of their deals, then sorry to say, but it probably won’t work out for this group ever, and having these defencemen on the cap won’t matter. There’s a clear directive for this team to get something done in the postseason over the next couple of years, and the McCabe extension is another example of that.
