Weekend FTB: One Swede down, one to go...

On Friday, the Toronto Maple Leafs announced the low-key re-signing of Andreas Johnsson, who accepted his qualifying offer rather than trying to negotiate anything longer term. You may have seen one of the myriad of tweets that Johnsson is clearly “betting on himself” to have a good year, put up good numbers in his first full season when he was a year younger t, and get a much better contract going forward.

Mind you, Connor Brown had a 20 goal year playing what I am guessing will be a similar role as Johnsson will this coming season, and he got $2.1 million AAV for three years. I’m not good at telling this stuff but I believe he was also a year younger in his first full season than Johnsson will be. So perhaps the Leafs played more hard ball with Johnsson, and now he wants to have a chance to get the Brown contract.

For their NHL roster, the Leafs only have William J Nylander left to sign, with $14,741,667 in cap space remaining. Let’s say he gets the 6 year, $6.66 million AAV Pastrnak contract, plus a little increase to get the same percentage of the cap. According to CapFriendly, Pastrnak’s cap hit was 8.89% of the cap when it was signed. We don’t yet know what the cap ceiling will be for the 2018/19 season, but let’s say it’s $81 million. My math ain’t great but Google is telling me that $7.2 million(ish) would be 8.89%.

That would give the Leafs $7.5 million in cap space left this season. A common assumption, or rumour, in the Twitterverse is that the Leafs want to leave themselves a cushion to avoid any bonus overages that can muck up their cap space next season. However, I can’t help but notice a few oft-rumoured-to-be-traded players and what their cap hits are...

Max Pacioretty — $4,500,000
Nino Niederreiter — $5,250,000
Jeff Skinner — $5,725,000
Justin Faulk — $4,833,333
Jared Spurgeon — $5,187,500
Erik Karlsson — $6,500,000/

Let’s gloss over whatever the hell the Leafs have that they’d want to trade to get any of those players. We’ll leave that to Kyle Dubas to figure out, and when he does it will blow. our. minds!

ONTO THE LINKS!

Mailbag: How will the Maple Leafs and Marlies look this October? | by Kevin, who will hearing from Fulemin’s lawyers about this unlawful trademark infringement.

Rasmus Sandin has decided not to participate in the WJSS | by Katya

Auston Matthews is going to get paid by the Maple Leafs. But what’s the right contract? | by Mirtle at The Athletic

The 2017-18 Toronto Marlies: What we learned, and a look at the path forward | by Mark Rackham at MLHS, a fun little look at back and ahead for you Marlies diehards.

Are you content with the Leafs’ D as it stands heading into the season? | a TLN roundtable

AROUND THE NHL!

John Tavares talks about meeting* with Tampa | a damn good read by JustinG at Raw Charge

Joel Armia avoids arbitration, signs a one-year contract with the Montreal Canadiens | by HEOTP, I guess if you can’t win with a few star players, you might as well try to win with a whole Armia.

Mark Stone and Cody Ceci file for arbitration | by Silver Seven Sens. It’s gonna be real funny when Stone does everything he can to get on a one year deal so he can UFA his way out of town ASAP.

Anthony Mantha Signs Two Year Contract with Detroit | by WIIM

What does the James van Riemsdyk signing mean for Wayne Simmonds in the short and long-term? | by BSH. I can’t help but notice that he has a $3,975,000 cap hit with one year remaining...

Pittsburgh re-signs Jamie Oleksiak to a three-year deal | by Pensburgh on the lesser Oleksiak sibling.

Hellebuyck Re-Signs for 6 Years | by Arctic Ice Hockey