5 ways the Toronto Maple Leafs can save cap space

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The Toronto Maple Leafs find themselves up against the salary cap and need to re-sign key forwards Mitch Marner, Kasperi Kapanen, and Andreas Johnsson. Here is how they can find the cap space.

The Toronto Maple Leafs took the Boston Bruins to the seventh game in their opening round series. The Bruins appear headed to a possible Stanley Cup without running into an opponent that gave them a tougher time.

Clearly, the Maple Leafs have a strong team. Their 100 point regular season was actually the third highest total in franchise history. They have an opportunity to do something in the near future that they haven’t done since 1967 (win a Stanley Cup) or at the very least since 2004 (win a playoff series.)

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However, they face some tough decisions to keep this team as competitive as possible while staying below the new salary cap ceiling. The cap is slated to rise slightly to about $82-83 million.

Assuming it sits at $83 million, the Leafs currently have about $8.8 million in cap space. Add to that the Nathan Horton salary that is certain to be put on long term injury reserve and the Leafs have about $14 million to play with.

It sounds like a lot of money. Okay, $14 million is a lot of money. It sounds like a lot of room to make things work. Not so fast.

The Maple Leafs need to find a way to re-sign Mitch Marner, Kasperi Kapanen, and Andreas Johnsson who are all restricted free agents. They also need to bring back or replace Jake Gardiner and Ron Hainsey, who are unrestricted free agents.

Marner will eat up most of the available cap space himself. So how are the Toronto Maple Leafs going to find a way to bring everyone back and continue the ascent this franchise has been on for the past three years?

Well, let’s take a look at five ways they can save a few bucks.

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