The Maple Leafs and Oilers game on Saturday night was an absolute gem and one of the more entertaining hockey games we’ve seen this season. Because of this, the second intermission was probably not what we’ll remember most about it, but it did have some information that will be impactful on the Leafs long term. During Elliotte Friedman’s Saturday Headline segment, he discussed the possibility that the NHL salary cap could go beyond the projected $92.5 million number that has been publicly stated and instead we could see a cap inflator used in 2025-26 which could push the number as high as $95M-$97M.
For a team like the Maple Leafs, more cap is definitely not bad news. If the Leafs can spend $4.5M more than expected that basically equates to another Jake McCabe. Who doesn’t love Jake McCabe and who wouldn’t want another one? It seems pretty good. Of course, it’s not as straightforward as that. With the salary cap going up, that means a couple of things that will need to be factored into the Leafs playing as well. The first one being that every player is about to get a little more expensive.
Here are a few potential impacts to keep an eye out for…
The Marner, Knies, and Tavares contracts
The Maple Leafs have a trio of important contracts to address heading into next summer and the ideal time to sign them would have been before the rumour of a $97M salary cap had dropped. All of these players have just seen their negotiating leverage take a boost and in the case of Marner and Tavares, the value they could get on the open market has become a lot more substantial as well.
Marner’s contract is the big one here and the one that will eat into the rising salary cap more than any other. Marner presently makes $10.903M and no matter what you think of him (although everyone probably thinks more highly of him after Saturday night) he was never going to take less than that. He was also never going to take less than William Nylander. The big number to consider with Marner is 13.37%, which was his share of the salary cap the last time he was signed by the Leafs and is a good bet for what he’d be looking for again. Given that William Nylander received a 13.07% share at the time of his deal, it seems difficult for Brad Treliving to negotiate down from that percentage, and it would play out as follows over the following three cap amounts:
| Salary Cap | Est. Marner AAV |
| 92,500,000 | 12,367,250 |
| 95,000,000 | 12,701,500 |
| 97,000,000 | 12,968,900 |
The extra $600k annually doesn’t break the Maple Leafs on its own and all of these numbers still project lower than the worst numbers you’ve heard about Mitch Marner, and those numbers come from the realities of the open market. Before even getting into individual cap situations from around the league, a potential $9M jump already provides most teams with about 2/3rds of the money they need to throw an ungodly amount at Mitch Marner on the open market. When you factor in that $9M + 10% cap overage inflator in the offseason, that’s $18.7M of cap space that every team has to make an initial offer and not having to worry about cap compliance until after the fact. If it is about the money, Marner will get it somewhere, and the Leafs will need to establish what their reasonable internal number is.
Matthew Knies’ situation is more one of better deals simply eroding. Affordable $4M bridge deals or the $5-6M longer-term range seen from comparable players like Anton Lundell and Quinton Byfield are likely to be taken off the table and the reality is that Knies will probably be in that $7M price range that a lot of people scoffed at when Nick Kypreos first floated it.
The next Tavares contract is going to lead into the next section about supply and demand. The following all seem to be true. John Tavares wants to stay in Toronto. It is in the Maple Leafs’ best interest to keep John Tavares. The limited number of quality centres that hit free agency increases the Leafs’ need to bring Tavares back but also gives him more leverage.
The NHL has already seen the game of chicken play out with Steven Stamkos in Tampa and the player refused to take too deep a discount in order to stay with his franchise. He went elsewhere and while the money is better, nothing else has really gone right. How much of an influence that will have on John Tavares remains to be seen, but suffice to say, any dreams about a Mark Giordano/Jason Spezza level discount to play for the Leafs aren’t happening and while Tavares will likely take below market value, he’s likely to still be at least a $5M player.
Shrinking Supply/Increasing Demand
The biggest concern about the salary cap going up should come from the fact that most teams can now afford to bring back every player they want to (with a few rare exceptions.) There will be a few players that may want to test the open market as well and truly see what they can get, but for the most part, any player hitting the open market is going to have a bit of a buyer beware attached to them as a team decided they weren’t worth the asking price.
Given that the best of the best will be gone, the free agency market is going to be limited. Right now, NHL free agency involves names like Mikko Rantanen, Mitch Marner, Igor Shesterkin, Nikolaj Ehlers, and even Brock Boeser, but the reality is in June most if not all of these players will be signed and teams will be debating how much to throw at Claude Giroux.
The Leafs could potentially find themselves in the situation of wanting to spend but not having anyone worthwhile to spend it on. The solution will be trading and developing, and without going too far down that road of what that looks like, there should be a need to both embrace a trading mentality heading into the deadline, but also a need to retain top picks for the entry draft.
As things sit today the Leafs have around $29M of cap space to spend if the salary cap is left at the originally estimated number of $92.5M. Having over $33M to spend with a salary cap of $97M obviously has a lot of appeal, assuming the right players are available to spend it on.
