The deadline to submit a cap-compliant 23-man roster to the NHL is tomorrow at 5 p.m. To accomplish that, most teams will do all their final cuts today and the waiver list will be very long. Waiver exempt players can wait until the last minute, but chances are the Leafs will sort themselves out by this afternoon.
They waived four players on the weekend, who all cleared:
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Everyone cleared waivers for the Maple Leafs
And they cut some AHLers and minor leaguers as well. As of this morning, the roster and cap hits look like this:
Maple Leafs Roster as of September 30
| Name | Cap Hit | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Mason Marchment | $767,500 | ?? |
| Auston Matthews | $11,634,000 | Active |
| John Tavares | $11,000,000 | Active |
| Mitch Marner | $10,893,000 | Active |
| William Nylander | $6,962,366 | Active |
| Alex Kerfoot | $3,500,000 | Active |
| Andreas Johnsson | $3,400,000 | Active |
| Kasperi Kapanen | $3,200,000 | Active |
| Trevor Moore | $775,000 | Active |
| Nic Petan | $775,000 | Active |
| Kevin Gravel | $700,000 | Active |
| Jason Spezza | $700,000 | Active |
| Kenny Agostino | $737,500 | Active |
| Nick Shore | $750,000 | Active |
| Morgan Rielly | $5,000,000 | Active |
| Cody Ceci | $4,500,000 | Active |
| Jake Muzzin | $4,000,000 | Active |
| Tyson Barrie | $2,750,000 | Active |
| Timothy Liljegren | $863,333 | Active |
| Justin Holl | $675,000 | Active |
| Martin Marincin | $700,000 | Active |
| Frederik Andersen | $5,000,000 | Active |
| Michael Hutchinson | $700,000 | Active |
| Frederik Gauthier | $675,000 | Active |
| Ilya Mikheyev | $925,000 | Active |
| Egor Korshkov | $925,000 | Active |
| Dmytro Timashov | $694,444 | Active |
| Rasmus Sandin | $894,167 | Active |
| Zach Hyman | $2,250,000 | LTIR |
| Nathan Horton | $5,300,000 | LTIR |
| David Clarkson | $5,250,000 | LTIR |
| Travis Dermott | $863,333 | LTIR |
| Garrett Wilson | $725,000 | SOIR/LTIR |
| Kalle Kossila | $700,000 | SOIR |
| Matt Read | $0 | PTO |
| Retained | $1,200,000 | |
| Total: | $100,384,643 | |
| Total LTIR and SOIR | $15,088,333 | |
| $85,296,310 | ||
| Salary Cap | $81,500,000 | |
| Cuts must total: | $3,796,310 |
There are 27 or 28 active players, depending on the status of Mason Marchment, which remains a bit of mystery. So to meet the 23-man limit, there only needs to be four or five cuts. There are a lot of injured players of various sorts on this roster, and that’s why from a total cap hit of over $100 million, the Leafs are right now not even $4 million over the cap.
The two injured Leafs, Travis Dermott and Zach Hyman will be on LTIR tomorrow, as will David Clarkson and Nathan Horton. You all likely have some idea of how that works.
Two other players (and possibly Marchment) are likely to be on SOIR or Season-Opening Injured Reserve. This is a special category of IR for players who are hurt in training camp or in training before camp began. Depending on contract status, SOIR sometimes comes with total cap relief for a player who never played in the NHL in the prior year like Marchment. He won’t go on LTIR, his cap hit doesn’t count, and he doesn’t count towards the 23-man roster. For Garrett Wilson, who was hurt before camp, his one-way contract requires him to be put on LTIR since SOIR doesn’t provide cap relief. For Kalle Kossila, the calculation is complicated, and I get a cap hit of $97,849 for him. The Leafs may or may not choose to put him on LTIR to get rid of that depending on how hurt he is. I just assumed for today that his total cap hit doesn’t count.
Sorry for all of this on a Monday, here:
Add up all those cap hits that don’t count, and you come up with $3,796,310 by cutting five players, or $3,028,810 from four players if Marchment is also on SOIR.
This SOIR stuff sounds great until you remember the tale of Petter Granberg, the man who was injured in Leafs camp years back, who sat around healing up and then was promptly lost on waivers once he was ready to be sent to the AHL. It’s a whole lot easier to slide a player through on the Monday before the season starts than some random day in late October. I’m not saying someone like Wilson or Kossila will be claimed, but that’s more likely to happen later than today. But the rules say you can’t waive a player who is injured, so this is how it’s handled.
The waiver exempt players on that roster are: Timothy Liljegren, Rasmus Sandin, Egor Korshkov, Ilya Mikheyev, and they can be cut at any time between now and Tuesday at 5 p.m.