Team: 2018-19 Toronto Maple Leafs

Initial Creation Date: Apr. 12, 2018

Published: Apr. 15, 2018

Salary Cap Mode: Basic

Im not saying any of these moves happened, or that even if one of these moves happens, but if Toronto really wanted to spend a lot for next year for a chance at the cup, they could do something like this. Taking on overpaid but serviceable players with one year contracts and signing veterans to one year contracts. Watching the leafs this series proves one thing, they don't have much experience or toughness, and actual toughness where the player can score just as well as he can hit, not Martin who is a liability in all other facets of the game.

Joe Thornton who gives you a massive upgrade over and fourth line centre. Will he want to play fourth line centre? I think for the salary proposed, chance to play with Marleau and for Babcock again, and being close to home would all factor into it. Realistically with the lines proposed, he would still see 13-14 minutes of action a night and would have a strong chance at a cup.

Our defence has been horrendous to put it nicely. We NEED a few defenders who can actually defend. We probably won't be able to afford Gardiner after his current contract expires so we might as well keep him for a cup run next year and try getting a hometown discount.

Hamonic from Calgary makes sense because they have been a dumpster fire for most of the season and offloading a few defensemen may make sense for them especially with some AHL guys looking ready. A first and a third is a lot to give up and Pickard serves as found money while Carrick just isn't in the long term plans from the looks of it. Calgary does this because first, they don't have a single pick in the first three round of the draft this year. Pickard could solve their back up goalie problem which was on of the reasons their season went south this year, they get Carrick as a number 7 younger defensemen. Hamonic is NOT going to put up 50 points a season but he will defend better than anyone on the leafs right now. His low cap hit would make him feasible even with the extensions coming up of MNM.

Zaitsev for Seabrook and their first round pick this year. The length of the contracts are the same while Seabrook is 6 years older. Seabrook will be 37-38 but thats why the first round pick is there because he will eventually be a buyout. The first round pick is crucial because they could end up picking up someone like Bouchard which would instantly upgrade our defence on the right side (and be super affordable short-term). For the time being, he would serve as a good partner for Gardiner or Dermott and be able to move up if need be, with a TON of playoff experience on the back end. They could chase someone like Doughty or even someone like Myers in free agency depending on the budget. It would give us a D core of:

Rielly-Hamonic
Gardiner-Seabrook
Dermott-Hainsey
Liljegren, Brogman etc.

At the end of the year, we would have nearly 39 million in cap spaces and 12 million this year to pay off some of those bonuses.

39 million
11 million Matthews
6.5 million Marner
2.25 million Kapenen
1.5 million Johnsson
5.75 million Gardiner
4 million for Spezza (one year type of thing till we find a permanent solution)


Leaves a little more than 7 million to add a piece.

Lines
Hyman-Matthews-Nylander
Marleau-Kadri-Marner
Johnsson-Spezza-Kapenen
Grundstrom-X-Brown
Bracco, Timashov

Rielly-Hamonic
Gardiner-Seabrook
Dermott-Liljegren
Bouchard, Brogman, etc.

Anderson
Sparks

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