Leave it to the Toronto Maple Leafs to find a way to start the season with 28 players on the roster and more than $4.3 million in spending over the salary cap.
The Leafs kicked some of their key roster decisions at least a month down the road on Monday afternoon, putting five players on either injured reserve, long-term injured reserve (LTIR) or season-opening injured reserve (SOIR).
They also signed two newcomers in Max Pacioretty and Steven Lorentz, pushing the number of forwards on the extended roster to 16.
The number of defencemen? An incredible 10.
Remaining cap space? One dollar.
(I wonder what they’ll spend it on.)
Here’s the full rundown of who is left as the Leafs prepare for Wednesday’s big season-opener in Montreal:
Forwards (16)
Matthew Knies – Auston Matthews – Mitch Marner
Max Domi – John Tavares – William Nylander
Max Pacioretty – Pontus Holmberg – Nick Robertson
Steven Lorentz – David Kämpf – Ryan Reaves
Extra: Bobby McMann
Injured reserve: Connor Dewar
LTIR: Calle Järnkrok
SOIR: Fraser Minten
Defencemen (10)
Morgan Rielly – Chris Tanev
Oliver Ekman-Larsson – Jake McCabe
Simon Benoît – Conor Timmins
Philippe Myers – Timothy Liljegren
LTIR: Jani Hakanpää, Dakota Mermis
Goalies (2)
Joseph Woll
Anthony Stolarz
There is an awful lot going on there, so I’ll do my best to unpack it as quicky and simply as I can. For one, those on LTIR — Järnkrok, Hakanpää and Mermis — will be there at least until Halloween, as that designation comes with a minimum stipulation of 24 days and 10 games.
Mermis, a 30-year-old AHL veteran, will be sent down to the minors when healthy. So, too, will top prospect Minten, who suffered a nasty high ankle sprain in the prospect camp.
Dewar, meanwhile, can return to the lineup at any time, as he’s currently counting against the cap and not locked into LTIR. The Leafs would, however, need to clear a roster spot, presumably by waiving and demoting one of their eight healthy defencemen.
Given Dewar had a significant offseason shoulder surgery, however, his timeline is a bit murky, so don’t expect him back right away, either (and he could even join the others on LTIR if the Leafs decide they need the cap room).
How will all of these injured reserve and salary cap machinations impact the Leafs on the ice? Well, you can consider this first month of the season as a bit of an extended training camp.
New coach Craig Berube will get another month of games to take a close look at what he has and what he feels he still needs. And GM Brad Treliving and the front office get another month to continue to survey the trade market around the league, something they’ve been pretty active at now for a while.
Liljegren is one key candidate to be moved, what with his $3 million salary, the fact he’s been in trade rumours for months and the plethora of bigger, more defensive defencemen available.
The other players who could possibly be moved include Kämpf and Järnkrok, who both make more than $2 million a season and would likely have interested parties on the open market.
David Kämpf could be a potential trade chip if the Leafs need cap space. (Richard A. Whittaker / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Other players playing for their jobs on the roster include basically everyone on the fringe. Myers, for example, was a surprise holdover from camp and has bounced around a lot in recent years, including playing most of the last two seasons for the Lightning’s farm team. He’s a candidate to be waived once some teammates start to get healthy.
So too is Timmins, although he received a solid vote of confidence from Berube at practice on Monday and appears in line to play against the Canadiens on Wednesday.
“He is a really good puck mover, for one,” Berube said of Timmins. “He sees the ice and makes plays. He has also been hard in camp. He has been competitive defensively and has done a good job.”
Up front, there are a lot of players who aren’t fully safe in their roles right now. In addition to Kämpf and Järnkrok being trade candidates, all of Holmberg, Robertson, Lorentz, Reaves, Dewar and McMann could plausibly be on the bubble with a poor start to the season.
In 17 seasons of covering this team, I’m not sure I’ve seen an opening Leafs roster jammed with this many players on one-way NHL deals coming out of training camp, to be honest. And it’s likely going to create a very competitive environment, where one or two bad games could mean someone coming out of the lineup and having to watch someone else play for their job.
But carrying this full of a roster, with this many extra players, is very likely temporary. Even if Treliving makes a bold move in trading someone like Liljegren away for a pick or prospect before the end of the month, the Leafs would still have two too many players on the roster (including 15 forwards and eight defencemen) and be roughly $570,000 over the cap when fully healthy.
Now, it’s possible they run into more injuries, don’t ever have a full complement of players and aren’t faced with more tough decisions. But more than likely, at some point, something will have to give due to the level of the logjam here.
The other thing I could see assistant GM Brandon Pridham aiming to do during the season is get out of LTIR entirely. That way the Leafs could begin accruing cap space for a move by the March 7 trade deadline, cap space that would grow the longer Toronto is under the cap.
That would also allow the Leafs to account for Pacioretty’s games-played bonuses — all $626,000 of them, half of which he attains by playing just nine games, the other half for getting to 35 — against this year’s cap instead of having that charge carry over to next season.
It may very well make sense, in other words, to move more than one significant salary in the next few weeks.
That definitely adds some higher stakes to these first few games of the season for a lot of the players on this roster. Don’t expect the bottom of the lineup group to be easing into the campaign here, not when the coaches and management will be watching for any slip-ups.
There’s obviously a lot on the line for everyone involved in the organization this year, so creating this type of battle for ice time and lineup spots should be an added bonus. And it gives us something more to keep an eye on off the ice, as Treliving is almost certainly going to have to pull the trigger on a trade or two well in advance of the deadline.
(Top photo: Vincent Ethier / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
