Cap Relief

The league has announced the cap figure for the 2007-2008 season and the Leafs suddenly have a bit more wiggle room. The cap will be set at $50.3M which, based on Bitter's cap work, leaves the Leafs (is that still considered clever by the anti-Leafs brigade?) with $4,964,672 under the cap.

You'll notice a few things from looking at the roster. First, is that the Leafs are already at 20 players that could be on the big club's roster. The second is that $4.97M doesn't seem like enough to land the big free agent. However, with some clever moves they could be able to free up some more cap space.

The team won't be carrying 8 defencemen. They'll be carrying 7 defencemen and the bane of my existence (swingman Wade Belak) who, while hilarious, tends to bring the humour to the ice. In terms of dream moves, the Leafs would move White to the Marlies and save $850K dollars of salary. That brings us up to $5.72M of cap space available. Even with Woz out of the picture the Leafs would still have an extra $463K to offer.

Of course, that is a pretty basic scenario involving just putting salary on the Marlies. There are innumerable trade rumours (McCabe to the Isles?) that could also free-up a lot of cash. I am sure that waiver considerations will come into play but the Leafs have a change to figure in the UFA frenzy that was not possible with a $48M cap.

I'll be back Tuesday to rehash the Leafs' moves (non-moves?). It should be a wild weekend.