Maple Leafs' cap situation next season

Well there won't be any player movement until the end of the NHL playoffs so this is what the Leaf roster will look like at the end of the season. They have 16 players on contract for a total of almost $50 million. If the cap is in the neighbourhood of $56 million that leaves only $6 million to sign 7 players (1 goalie, 6 forwards). Not much money. Let's say you want to re-sign RFA Gustavsson (approx. $2.5 million) , Kulemin ($1.5 million), Hanson ($1 million), and Mitchell ($0.5 million). That leaves you with $0.5 million for 3 more players. So something has to give if Brian Burke intends on finding some quality players to skate with Phil Kessel.

The Leaf defense is over $25 million which is almost half their payroll. Far too much loaded at the blue line. So obviously some defense salary will have to be jettisoned to fill out the roster. The obvious candidates are Kaberle and Finger. Kaberle can be traded during the offseason and that surely will occur. Finger's contract cannot be moved but it can be buried in the minors. That frees up $7.5 million which means that $8 million is now available for 5 additional players (3 forwards, 2 defensemen).

	Salary Next Season ($ millions)	Cap Hit ($ millions)
Dion Phaneuf	7.000	6.500
J-S Giguere	7.000	6.000
Phil Kessel	6.000	4.500
Mike Komisarek	6.000	4.500
Tomas Kaberle	4.250	4.250
Francois Beauchemin	3.550	3.800
Tyler Bozak	0.875	3.725
Jeff Finger	3.500	3.500
Luke Schenn	0.875	2.975
Mikhail Grabovski	2.850	2.900
Nazem Kadri	0.900	1.750
Colton Orr	1.000	1.000
Viktor Stalberg	0.785	0.850
Luca Caputi	0.585	0.833
Carl Gunnarsson	0.630	0.800
Fredrik Sjostrom	0.750	0.750
Jonas Gustavsson	RFA
John Mitchell	RFA
Nikolai Kulemin	RFA
Christian Hanson	RFA
Jamie Lundmark	UFA
Wayne Primeau	UFA
Rikard Wallin	UFA
Jonas Frogren	UFA
Garnet Exelby	UFA
Mike van Ryn	UFA
Darcy Tucker		1.000
TOTAL	46.550	49.633