from Damien Cox of the Toronto Star,

The overall goal is to be better able to afford the expensive, irreplaceable players by making sure there’s lots of choice and competition among the more affordable, replaceable athletes.

The only current Leaf guaranteed to get paid to the max is Auston Matthews. Forget the big hometown discount there. The Leafs need to then manage their cap intelligently to afford William Nylander and Mitch Marner, with the dollar amounts depending on how those players progress.

After that, it’s a matter of having lots of competition for jobs and available cap space. Ideally, the organization will progress to the point where some of those players will be willing to take less to be a Leaf. Tampa surely felt it got that kind of a bargain at the upper end of the payroll with Steven Stamkos last summer, and that could really pay off down the line.

In Toronto, Morgan Rielly, Nazem Kadri, Connor Brown and Zach Hyman have signed what could be considered team-friendly deals in the past two years. Freddie Anderson is the 18th-highest-paid goalie in the league. Meanwhile, with more than $16 million coming off the books next summer, you’ll have James van Riemsdyk, Leo Komarov and Tyler Bozak all looking for new contracts, probably with the choice of trying to get more as UFAs or settling for less to stay in Toronto.

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