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There has been a lot of talk recently about Steven Stamkos signing with the Toronto Maple Leafs during the offseason as a free agent. The question isn’t whether or not Stamkos will be a Maple Leaf next season, but if it’s even possible for Toronto to afford his contract.
Stamkos is in the final year of a contract that has a cap hit of $7.5 million and it’s predicted that he will want a raise up to $10 million a year. This is a big raise, one which the Tampa Bay Lightning will be unable to afford when they have multiple players they need to re-sign over the next two years. The fact that Tampa Bay hasn’t given Stamkos a contract extension yet is very telling of one of two things: Either Stamkos is unhappy with playing in Tampa Bay and wants to play somewhere else, or Tampa Bay realizes they can’t afford him when they have other players to re-sign as well.
So, if Tampa Bay can’t afford Stamkos, then how will Toronto?
The Maple Leafs will have 13 players to re-sign during the offseason. Now this number could be higher or lower, depending on who Toronto trades at the Trade Deadline. There’s two players that assuredly won’t be with Toronto next season because of their poor level of play, Roman Polak and Michael Grabner. Polak is making $2.75 million this season and $3 million for Grabner, so that would be around $5 million freed up.
That $5 million will go towards Nazem Kadri‘s new contract and re-signing Morgan Rielly. Kadri is currently making $4.1 million. Depending on how well he plays this season, it could raise his annual salary to a maximum of $6 million. This leaves a maximum of $2 million to be used towards re-signing Kadri based on the maximum amount possible raise he would want.
Rielly is on the last year of his entry level contract and will want a big raise in the offseason. Hopefully Toronto can sign him to a long contract of only $4-5 million a year, which will become a better deal as Rielly continues to improve.
Despite all of this, even if Toronto miraculously manages to re-sign the rest of their players to the same annual amount they currently make, Toronto will still be $9-10 million short of affording Stamkos.
When you look at this and how much each player makes, it becomes evident that the only way Toronto can afford Stamkos is to trade either Joffrey Lupul, Dion Phaneuf, or both of them. Although Lupul is a great player, he just isn’t worth $5.25 million a year when he is injured for most of the NHL season. Likewise, despite Phaneuf’s improved play this season under coach Mike Babcock, the Maple Leafs can’t afford his $7 million a year contract.
Toronto has a number of young players looking for a raise, but bringing Stamkos into that equation makes it even more difficult to sign them all. In order to sign Steven Stamkos, Toronto will have to trade Lupul and Phaneuf just to open up enough for $10 million in cap space.
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