The health of Toronto Maple Leafs captain John Tavares and the team’s salary cap crunch may force them to ice a group of less than 20 players as soon as opening night.
It’s a scenario the Toronto Maple Leafs are hoping to avoid but it’s not out of the realm of possibility that the club may be forced to ice a roster of just 19 players when they open their regular season on Wednesday night against the Montreal Canadiens.
On Sunday, the club brought some clarity to their current salary cap situation by wheat they waived Wayne Simmonds, Kyle Clifford, Adam Gaudette and Victor Mete and signed forward Zach Aston-Reese to a one-year, $840,630 contract.
Assuming some corresponding injury moves that include Timothy Liljegren (hernia) and Jordie Benn (groin) to the long-term injured reserve (LTIR) and a prorated amount of Carl Dahlstrom’s salary (shoulder) on season-opening injured reserve ($78,750 to be exact), The Maple Leafs will be left with a season-opening roster of 20 players (including John Tavares who is out with an oblique injury) as they fall just dollars under the $82.5 million salary cap, per Puckpedia.com.
Tavares’ status came into question last week when Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe wouldn’t rule the forward out of the team’s opening night lineup.
“Obviously I’d like to be ready to go Wednesday,” Tavares told reporters on Saturday morning. “But at the same time you have to look at the big picture. Four games in six nights and we have an 82-game grind and hopefully a two-month grind after that.
“[I’ll] just continue to hit my checkpoints day-by-day. Get the feedback and we’ll just assess each day where I’m at.”
On Sept, 27, Keefe announced that Tavares was out for a minimum of three weeks with an oblique injury. That timeline originally placed the captain out until Oct. 18.
While the Leafs are being cautious in making sure Tavares doesn’t return too soon, the timeframe of his injury did nothing for Toronto in terms of cap relief. The injury isn’t severe enough to warrant placing him on LTIR and having him not play for 10 games and 24 days.
So Toronto is stuck in a scenario where he’ll likely be on the 20-man roster when it’s finalized by 5 p.m. ET on Monday, while his playing status for Wednesday remains a mystery.
If Tavares isn’t cleared to play on Wednesday and Toronto doesn’t make any other moves to clear out more cap space (via trade for example), the Leafs would not be permitted to call up another player under the NHL CBA’s emergency exception rule until they play a game with under 18 skaters or less than two goaltenders.
It’s not the ideal scenario. But if it has to happen, playing with just 19 players against a rebuilding team like Montreal could be seen as a best-case scenario for a less-than-ideal situation.
Once Wednesday’s game concludes, the Leafs would be permitted to call up another player with a contract average annual value of $850,000 or less. That player would carry a salary cap hit of $0 dollars and be permitted to stay on the roster until the injured player (Tavares) is cleared to return. The Maple Leafs would be able to ice a full 20-man roster as soon as Thursday when they host the Washington Capitals.
It wouldn’t be the first time the Maple Leafs dressed short.
On Oct. 16, the Maple Leafs were short a goaltender when Petr Mrazek was injured, but not long enough to the point where LTIR was in play. The Leafs elected to sign University of Toronto goaltender Alex Bishop as an emergency backup rather than play short any of their skaters. After the game concluded, they were permitted to call up Michael Hutchinson under the emergency exception rule.
With the cap remaining relatively flat, this scenario could be played out many times with various teams this season.
“I know a lot of teams at different times have played short bodies and things of that nature,” Keefe said on Saturday. “I’ve been in some meetings where I left pretty confused about a lot of the factors that are at play outside of just the actual evaluation of the players. Each injury effects the cap, as well.”