Re: Toronto Maple Leafs
I think the biggest question for the Leafs brass is what went wrong? Where are the holes and how do you plug them when you've got little cap space to work with?
Goaltending:
To me, I think Campbell is Andersen 2.0, only a lot cheaper against the cap. He's good enough to win you games but tends to give up a bad goal at a bad time. Campbell has one year left at $1.65M, Andersen is a UFA so that frees up a lot of cap space. Campbell is your starter next year, Andersen is gone. Who's backing up Campbell? Lots of FA options there, including Rittich who's a RFA.
Defense
Dermott is the only FA they need to worry about and re-sign. Bogosian, Hutton and Marincin are their FAs from their current roster and none were really regulars. Is this D good enough? I think it's improved over previous teams but is that enough. I think the kids like Dermott and Sandin have to take a step forward if this D corp is going to improve.
Forwards
This is the biggest question mark. Does Hyman come back? Can they afford him?? I think they HAVE to bring Spezza back again. He was once again one of your better forwards when it counted. How sad is that! Toronto has to decide if they can win paying the big four (JT, Marner, Matthews and Nylander) half of their cap for the next three years. Safe to say the cap isn't' going up in that time frame and that's all they have of Matthews and Nylanders term on their deals before both are UFAs.
Do they bite the bullet and trade Marner for more depth throughout the lineup? I dont see them dealing Nylander. He was arguably your best offensive player in the league and at $6.9M, that's easier to swallow than the $10.9 they are paying Marner.
Looking at Capfriendly, the Leafs are projected to go into the offseason with roughly $12.5M in available cap space and a lot of forward holes to fill. Is Hyman getting $5-6M? Probably somewhere. Is Toronto willing to invest that in him? Can they even afford to considering regulars Foligno, Simmonds, Galchenyuk, Thornton, Spezza all are most likely gone. I can see them bringing back Galchenyuk and Spezza, but thats a lot of holes to fill and try and improve on what is already here.
Man, that's a lot of question marks for the Leafs going into another disappointing offseason.
10 Team, Points Only, Cash League
25 Man Roster (no position), top 20 point getters count at end of month
Keep 20/25 at seasons end, Cut 5 to FA for redrafting
Goalie points W=2pt L=-1pt SHO=2pt
Stamkos, Tavares, Eichel, Mercer, JRobertson, RThomas, Kucherov, Nugent-Hopkins, Tuch, KConnor, Necas, Point, Konecny, SJarvis, Cozenz, Morrissey, Bouchard, Josi, Novak, Tolvanen, Peterka, SBennett
G- Vasilevskiy, Sorokin, Oettinger
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