With the signing of Tyler Ennis and the trade of Matt Martin, Cap Friendly is showing the Leafs with 11 forwards under contract who were NHL-roster players at the end of last year. Unfortunately one of those is Nathan Horton, so to figure out the actual cap hit of the roster right now, we need to add in a few more players.
The first two are obvious: William Nylander and Andreas Johnsson, and I’ve used a very generous over-estimation of nine million for those two before, so we can stick with that. That gives us 12 forwards, and for the sake of simplicity, if we slot Par Lindholm is as the 4C, that gives us 13.
Let’s also pick Igor Ozhiganov as the man who makes the team as the seventh defender, and that brings the roster to 22 players. We can add one more, so let’s go for Josh Jooris.
We get this calculation:
- current cap hit per Cap Friendly: $63,970,833
- Johnsson and Nylander: + $9 million = $72,970,833
- Par Lindholm: + $925,000 = $73,895,833
- Igor Ozhiganov: + $925,000 = $74,895,833
- Josh Jooris: + $650,000 = $75,470,833/
Which gives a space remaining of $4,029,167, without the use of the $5,300,000 in available LTIR room.
To add any player to our sample 23-man list, you have to remove someone, so at minimum, the Leafs can add a player with a cap hit of $4,679,167 without using LTIR room.
As of now, the Leafs have used 44 contract spaces, so they have as many as six open. However, if they sign Rasmus Sandin, for example, and he returns to the OHL to play, that contract does not count against the 50. If he goes to the SHL, it does.
And to see the updated depth chart, please visit the web version, which now includes the updates. I flipped a coin on Ennis. He plays right and left wing, and I slotted him in on the right side.