Connor Brown is one of a number of possible players that the Toronto Maple Leafs could look to move on from this upcoming summer to clear cap space for their pending RFAs

The Toronto Maple Leafs game 7 loss to the Boston Bruins at TD Garden last week stung unlike any loss prior during the Mike Babcock era. No longer is this team the scrappy bunch of kids that pushed the Presidents trophy Washington Capitals to six hard-fought games, nor is it the fresh-faced club that lost to the Boston Bruins in seven when their centre core consisted of a trio of Matthews-Bozak-Plekanec for the vast majority of the series. No, this team, as Chris Johnston put it on the most recent Steve Dangle Podcast, has “lost its baby fat”. The Maple Leafs, while still boasting a young core with a bright future ahead, have reached a turning point in their process. The club was unable to take advantage of the entry level deals of all three of their budding superstars, and are now in a difficult situation going forward with the impending Mitch Marner deal, their other looming RFAs, and the existing $10.75 Million in cap space tied up in Patrick Marleau and Nikita Zaitsev combined.

While many fans had hoped that by now the Maple Leafs would be well underway in a round two matchup with the Columbus Blue Jackets, the Buds are in the unenviable position of going into a summer of uncertainty and possible change. Kyle Dubas and the rest of the front office face the difficult reality that they have a lot of good players, and not a lot of money to go around to pay them all. The team still needs to address the obvious issues on the back end, evidenced by their bottom 10 ranking in expected goals against the past two seasons. That said, it’s unclear where exactly the money to fix these problems will come from, or if they even have the assets to make the kind of splash needed to move the needle considerably on their blue line. They’re already poised to lose the polarizing but ever important Jake Gardiner, and make no mistake about it, that is not going to help out their results. The Leafs are going to have a tough offseason addressing their issues, and won’t have very much wiggle room to go about it.

This offseason truly starts and ends with one simple question: what do the Leafs need to do to get out of this jam? There are people that are far smarter than I am that have projected out the Leafs cap crunch for this summer (one such individual is the ridiculously smart CBA wizard Earl Schwartz, who you should definitely be following on twitter @EarlSchwartz27), but to put it short and succinctly, some players are likely going to have to go. Patrick Marleau, Nikita Zaitsev, and Connor Brown are three names in particular that have been thrown around ad nauseam, but others have suggested the likes of Nazem Kadri and William Nylander as options to avoid this summer’s cap crunch. Of these five names, one of them has a full no-movement clause and likely won’t want to uproot his entire family after moving them all here from San Jose. The final two names, being Nazem Kadri and William Nylander, are going to provide you value far beyond what their contracts cost, and should absolutely be held onto regardless of what some may say about “character concerns” or the mystical “doesn’t play the game the right way”. Particularly in the case of Nazem Kadri, finding a player of his calibre at less than $4.5 million, which is what the Maple Leafs pay Kadri, would be exceptionally difficult. Not to mention, moving Kadri would also handicap the Maple Leafs by taking William Nylander away from Auston Matthews for good, something that would hold back both of these young stars that we already know make each other better. Moving either Kadri or Nylander would be an exercise in subtracting from the wrong place, and would set the team back in the long run.

That leaves the Maple Leafs with two players to prioritize moving for cap relief by the time July 1st rolls around. While neither Connor Brown nor Nikita Zaitsev should be considered high-end trading assets, it would be foolish to suggest that neither has a market for their talents. As I’ve said in the past, Nikita Zaitsev is a right-handed, minute eating defenseman that kills penalties, and alongside Jake Muzzin, looked like a passable top-4 defenseman. In the last 12 months, NHL GMs have made multiple moves to acquire far inferior defenseman with term on their contracts, which should give Leafs fans solace that Zaitsev may not have to be packaged with another high-value piece to move him out. Chris Johnston confirmed these thoughts in the aforementioned SDP, explaining that the team made a push to move him at this past February’s deadline. Finding Zaitsev’s replacement would be a difficult task, but it would certainly not be impossible, and we’ll explore that in a future article.

The same sentiment goes for Connor Brown, who on an even less expensive contract will likely provide solid value to whatever team acquires him. Moving on from Brown is unfortunate, being a hometown kid that has played the hero in the past, but he has unfortunately lost his spot on the depth chart and is a luxury for a team that needs to save as much money as possible this upcoming offseason. It’s worth remembering that during the 2016 NHL Draft, Andrew Shaw was traded to the Montreal Canadiens for two 2nd round picks (one of which would eventually become Alex Debrincat).

While Brown is unlikely to fetch the same return as Shaw, this season Brown actually put up a similar points per 60 and superior primary point per 60 compared to Shaw’s 15/16 season. By no means are these two players alike in what they bring to their respective teams, and clearly Andrew Shaw had been coming off of a superior year to Brown based on both Relative corsi for% and expected goals for%. However, Connor Brown’s skill set as an energy winger capable of potting 15 goals and acting as a swiss army knife type player is still an asset that will be coveted by teams around the league.

There really is no easy way to put it, the Maple Leafs are in one hell of a bind, with a number of key RFAs due to expire, and their already existing contracts forcing the team to tighten the purse strings even more. That being said, however, there are certainly moves that Dubas and Co. can make to address their situation, and make room for what is likely to come ahead. If they do ultimately chose to move on from these two pieces, they’re likely to be left with at least one considerable hole on their team on the back end, something already identified as a key weakness. As such, in part two, we’ll look at how the team can address this problem, and explore the thought of moving one expiring RFA contract to acquire a defenceman this offseason.