The Toronto Maple Leafs also have quite unusual situation: They have two of their best players – arguably their two best players – on entry level contracts.
Stop me if you heard this one before.
With an $80 million salary cap, the Leafs are able to game the system for one year because players who should combine for a cap hit of roughly $20 million will make less than $2 million. Even with potential bonus overages of $4.5 million, that’s an incredible savings.
If you further consider that players like Gardiner, Kadri, Marleau, Hainsey, Rielly, Andersen and Tavares are at ages where they aren’t getting better, there is a definitely incentive for the Leafs to really go all-in this season.