Toronto Maple Leafs: How the Arizona Coyotes can help next year

The Toronto Maple Leafs‘ cap situation will be tight next season and the Arizona Coyotes could be the ideal team to help clear some room.

The Toronto Maple Leafs need to sign William Nylander, Mitch Marner and Auston Matthews to new contracts this season and next, with all three expected to cost the team around a combined $25 million.

As the cap currently stands, this would leave the Leafs with just over $6.5 million next season, with the team still having a further 22 free agents to make decisions on.

Some of their free agents are key players, such as Andreas Johnsson, Kasperi Kapanen, Connor Carrick and Jake Gardiner.

Others could be traded, with questions surrounding the likes of Calvin Pickard, Curtis McElhinney and Josh Leivo.

For the Leafs, freeing up cap space is going to be the number one priority once they re-sign Nylander, Marner and Matthews.

One of the biggest cap weights the Leafs have is Nathan Horton, who costs them $5.3 million a season in cap space.

Horton is able to be placed on LTIR, which allows the team to ‘overspend’ on the cap, but removing his cost completely is something GM Kyle Dubas should be looking at closely ahead of the 2019-20 offseason.

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Enter the Arizona Coyotes, who have built up a reputation in recent years for taking on bad contracts in order to reach the cap floor.

Over the past few seasons, the Coyotes have helped out other teams in the NHL by taking on the salaries of players who will never step on the ice again in the league, with Pavel Datsyuk, Marian Hossa, Dave Bolland and Chris Pronger among the biggest contracts taken on.

In exchange for taking on the contracts, the Coyotes receive some assets of varying value and they could be the ideal trade partners for the Leafs.

Horton’s actual salary in the 2019-20 season falls to $3.6 million, a big drop that could make him an appealing contract for a smaller market team such as the Coyotes.

Trading away Horton’s cap hit of $5.3 million would give the Leafs close to $12 million in cap space next summer, far more manageable with so many important impending free agents.

Gardiner, for one, could be looking to earn a big pay rise next summer and if the Leafs are interested in keeping him around long-term, they will need to clear up cap space.

A trade between the two would likely include AHL players and draft picks being swapped between the two teams and wouldn’t likely cost either side too much, though the Leafs may need to offer a mid-to-low-round draft pick to make the deal worthwhile for the Coyotes.

What do you think Toronto Maple Leafs fans? Should the Buds consider making a deal with the Arizona Coyotes next summer? What kind of trade could you see the two teams agreeing on that offloads Horton’s cap hit? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!