Daily Free Talk / Armchair GM Thread

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[u/Soggy_Specific4093]

I keep seeing people suggest players the Leafs should trade for who have term left or will want term, but something to keep in mind is that due to tagging rules and signing Marchenko to his extension, we have virtually no future cap space to bring anyone in with term unless we send out players who have term or pull off other cap gymnastics.

It’s also not as simple as just looking at our future cap space to find out how much we really have. PuckPedia put out an article over the weekend that explains the situation very well and why they needed to rework the Marchenko trade to afford his extension.

“The originally agreed-upon trade had to be reworked because the $12.5 million cap hit Marchenko was set to earn next season as part of his new extension would have technically placed the Leafs over next season’s cap.”

“Everyone expects the 2027-28 cap to rise to at least $113.5 million, but that number isn’t official or locked in. Instead, per the CBA, the tagging rule measures future commitments against the current $104 million cap plus the 10% offseason allowance, using the offseason formula. That formula counts qualifying offers for players who could be RFAs next summer and prorates players on two-way deals who moved between the NHL and AHL.”

“So it’s not as simple as checking a team’s 2027-28 cap hits against the expected $113.5 million cap. That gap and the offseason cap formula is where the original deal ran into trouble.”

Article Link

[u/Parzival091 → u/Soggy_Specific4093]

TBF, I think any trade the Leafs make will end up with 1 or both of Rielly and OEL heading elsewhere, whether it's directly involved for whoever they bring in, or a separate trade. That's $11M from next season that also comes off the books. Would imagine Wood/Joshua are also dumped if needed, which is another $4.5M+ (assuming you only count half of Wood's AAV since he's in the AHL).

It's an annoying hurdle to have to clear, but it can be done. (A slightly bigger hurdle is that Brad gave DJ a 10-team NTC...why?!?!? lol)

[u/smileyduude → u/Parzival091]

Not to defend Brad, but he didn't sign the Joshua deal, though he did trade for it.