Armchair GM Thread 2020-2021

[CarltonTheBear]

We've gone from a potential $88mil salary cap ceiling just a month ago to a (likely) best case scenario of the salary cap remaining flat at $81.5mil because of everything going on. Not exactly great news. Let's see how that would effect the Leafs next season. This is our line-up of currently signed players for next season:

Hyman-Matthews-Nylander
Johnsson-Tavares-Marner
Engvall-Kerfoot-Kapanen
______-Spezza*-Barabanov

Rielly-Holl
Muzzin-Liljegren
Sandin-______
Marincin

Andersen
Campbell

That line-up, plus of course of retained salary on Phil, gives us a total cap hit of $78.6mil. That leaves us with about $2.8mil in salary cap space.

There's still also a number of restricted free agents to sign, the key ones being: Dermott, Mikheyev, Gauthier, and Malgin.

Our UFAs include Barrie, Ceci, Clifford, Spezza, and the ghosts of Clarkson and Horton. Safe to say Barrie and Ceci are gone. While the Leafs may have had the intention of re-signing Clifford I think a flat cap will pretty much wipe that possibility out. I went ahead and plugged Spezza into the line-up at $700k again. If it's not him filling that spot it'll likely be another league minimum guy like Gauthier so for projecting purposes it doesn't really matter.

There's also still a number of cheap depth options signed including Petan, Agostino, Korshkov, Robertson at forward and Rosen on defence. I largely included Marincin over Rosen because he's $50,000 cheaper and it'll annoy Frank.

So based off that line-up we have two roster spots open to fit Dermott and Mikheyev in and only $2.8mil in cap space to make it happen.

The two most obvious options are as follows. 1) Trade one of the middle 6 forwards (Kerfoot, Johnsson, Kapanen, or Hyman) to create some additional cap space or 2) try and convince those RFAs to split that $2.8mil between them on 1-year deals. I don't think option 2 is really that far-fetched, especially considering all teams will be faced with similar challenges. I imagine basically every free agent is going to end up getting less money this summer than they would have expected to a month ago.

The 3rd option of course is to think a little bigger with trades, potentially packaging Dermott with a Johnsson or Kapanen in hopes of acquiring a top-4 RHD. But even in that case we'll be limited to a defender making less than $4mil so that option would seem really difficult to pull off. Quality defenders making less than that amount don't become available very often.

Obviously though a flat cap isn't 100% confirmed yet, but if it's what ends up happening I think any hope of improving our defence next season goes down the drain.

[Frank E]

For the record, I am.

[herman]

For the record, I am.

 

[Andy]

Ok so we flip Marner to Nashville for Ellis and Arvidsson; you get the top RHD spot filled and a top 6 winger for essentially the same cap hit as Marner alone.

Next we send Kapanen to Columbus for Anderson(+?) and sign Anderson for slightly under Kapanen's cap hit x 4 years (ideally; will settle for 3).

That leaves us with a spot for Mikheyev with nearly 3 million cap space available and Dermott, with the backend all filled out, can be shopped for picks/prospects.

Crazy? Unrealistic? Stupid? All three?

[Andy]

Hyman- Matthews - Nylander
Mikheyev- Tavares- Arvidsson
Johnsson- Kerfoot- Anderson
Engvall- Spezza- Barbanov

Agostino
Brooks

Rielly- Ellis
Muzzin- Liljegren
Sandin- Holl

Marincin

I.....kinda like it...

[herman]

I think our defense improves structurally, regardless of personnel changes (or lack thereof).

Our top forwards are expanding their games into better defensive responsibility under Keefe, and the team is going to get an actual training camp to develop and ingrain the system patterns.

Muzzin - Holl
Rielly - Marincin
Sandin - Dermott
Rosen - Liljegren

If we trade out both Johnsson and Kapanen (unlikely, but hey) that's 7ish M that could be a big swing. Another option is Colin Miller who has fallen out of favour in Buffalo (for some reason) and is affordable and Dubas/Keefe are familiar with him. Can he handle second-pairing alongside Rielly or Muzzin?

[herman]

Hyman- Matthews - Nylander
Mikheyev- Tavares- Arvidsson
Johnsson- Kerfoot- Anderson
Engvall- Spezza- Barbanov

Agostino
Brooks

Rielly- Ellis
Muzzin- Liljegren
Sandin- Holl

Marincin

I.....kinda like it...

Marincin would be a decent goalie.

[Andy]

Hyman- Matthews - Nylander
Mikheyev- Tavares- Arvidsson
Johnsson- Kerfoot- Anderson
Engvall- Spezza- Barbanov

Agostino
Brooks

Rielly- Ellis
Muzzin- Liljegren
Sandin- Holl

Marincin

I.....kinda like it...

Marincin would be a decent goalie.

If that were true, Edmonton would never have let him go 

[Highlander]

Ok so we flip Marner to Nashville for Ellis and Arvidsson; you get the top RHD spot filled and a top 6 winger for essentially the same cap hit as Marner alone.

Next we send Kapanen to Columbus for Anderson(+?) and sign Anderson for slightly under Kapanen's cap hit x 4 years (ideally; will settle for 3).

That leaves us with a spot for Mikheyev with nearly 3 million cap space available and Dermott, with the backend all filled out, can be shopped for picks/prospects.

Crazy? Unrealistic? Stupid? All three?

Yes

[CarltonTheBear]

Marincin would be a decent goalie.

If that were true, Edmonton would never have let him go 

Hey, they let Dubnyk go thinking he was nothing!

[herman]

League-min jumps to 750k for 2021-22 so look for Dubas to sign two year deals for some fringe folk (Malgin, Brooks) @ 725k AAV

[herman]

https://theleafsnation.com/2020/04/09/optimizing-the-leafs-roster-for-the-seattle-expansion-draft

The Leafs remain well set up to not lose much, barring shakeups to the roster this off-season:
7F: Tavares, Matthews, Marner, Nylander, Kerfoot, Johnsson, Kapanen
3D: Rielly, Muzzin, Dermott
1G: Andersen/Campbell

We are losing someone on the level of Engvall/Dermott/Holl (until he was traded I was pretty sure it'd be Trevor Moore).

'Lucky': Sandin, Liljegren, Mikheyev, and Robertson (and Der-Arguchintsev) are exempt

Tricky decisions:

• Andersen and Hyman hit UFA 2021: of the 2, you can easily convince me to re-sign and protect Hyman, especially if a Kapanen/Johnsson get moved out
• Andersen probably doesn't get re-upped here; overpaying 30+ goaltenders is a death sentence in the Cap era (MTL, FLA) even if they're All-Star caliber.
• I'd like to see more of a tandem anyway with Campbell and someone younger until Woll/Scott are readier. GEORGIEV again?
• Would you trade out Kapanen AND Johnsson to also protect Engvall? Not for that express purpose, no.
• Kerfoot is a keeper for me, so shut up, he's not in the Kapanen/Johnsson conversation
• Make a big play for a top RD and you might as well include Dermott in a trade; I originally proposed re-signing Barrie (and letting Muzzin walk) to protect Rielly, Barrie, Dermott, but Muzzin is here to stay now...
• OR MAYBE A BALLSY MOVE to leave Muzzin unprotected after we get his most productive remaining year on this new deal and let him play closer to his other 'home' in 2022; would Seattle even take that cap hit?

[L K]

I mean I would be open to freeing up the cap hit from Kerfoot depending on how he gets used.  If he's going to be that winger on the 2nd line I don't think his salary is worth his production.  If he's playing up the middle on the 3rd line though with spot duty in the top 6 I think that is a different matter.

I'm honestly having a hard time finding how we keep Hyman on this team if next year he keeps up his scoring pace from this season.  His point production has gone up for three straight years as well as his goal scoring.   He only put up 1G against Boston last year but did it on fragments of a knee.  He isn't going to be a cheap contract if he can get a full season in the 50-60 point range that he was on pace for this year.

[herman]

Kerfoot is 3C. He was only 2W because both Johnsson and Mikheyev got hurt and Kapanen and Engvall literally could not to satisfactory levels. Kapanen has the tools to keep up, but not the brain.

I'm honestly having a hard time finding how we keep Hyman on this team if next year he keeps up his scoring pace from this season.  His point production has gone up for three straight years as well as his goal scoring.

As predicted by just about nobody, except 2018 me His shooting percentage was about twice the level of his proper norm (19% vs ~10%) this season, so I don't think this is getting repeated. I'd re-up for 3 years in the 3 to 3.75M range, which is about what Johnsson and Kapanen are getting for being younger 20 goal scorers. Even if he walks to UFA, I wouldn't mind Spezza-ing him on an annual basis after that final payday if he's up for it.

[CarltonTheBear]

I know that we always say "so and so is going to take a hometown discount with us" and it basically never happens and we look like idiots... but I could really see Hyman taking a hometown discount with us.