Cap Check: Leafs run on LTIR until Marchenko's $12.5 million arrives

The Maple Leafs' cap sheet is legal this morning because three players aren't on the ice. Take Max Domi, Dakota Joshua and Elvis Merzlikins off long-term injured reserve and Toronto is $6.65 million over a $104 million ceiling. That's a working sheet, not a healthy one, and it's the cheap year.

Kirill Marchenko's $3.85 million becomes $12.5 million next October, and that's when this roster finds out what it costs.

The number: $8.65 million. That's the jump in Marchenko's cap hit between this season and next, and it lands on a sheet that already has Auston Matthews at $13.25 million and William Nylander at $11.5 million. Three forwards, $37.25 million, before anyone pays Gavin McKenna.

Cap sheet: Space today: about $4.9 million as of Friday morning, with the second cap site about $750,000 lower. LTIR pool: $11.69 million, built mostly on Domi ($3.75M), Joshua ($3.25M) and Merzlikins ($4.43M after Columbus kept 18 percent). Chris Tanev sits on regular IR, not LTIR.

Cap sheet, continued: Retained slots used: 0 of 3. Contracts: 49 of 50. Active roster: 22 of 23. Potential bonuses: $3.5 million. Buyouts and buried money: none.

Where they sit today

John Chayka rebuilt this roster in one summer, and the sheet shows every seam. He bought Darren Raddysh's rights from Tampa for a fifth-round pick and signed him for eight years. He signed Sergei Bobrovsky for three years at $7 million.

He traded Matthew Knies, Steven Lorentz, Emil Andrae and a 2027 second to Columbus for Marchenko, Merzlikins and Miles Wood, then extended Marchenko for six years and $75 million before he'd played a game.

The result is a team that runs on LTIR relief from opening night. That's allowed, and plenty of contenders do it. The cost is that an LTIR team banks nothing. Toronto's deadline space is the same $4.9 million it has today, and it only exists while those three stay out.

The number nobody is talking about is the $3.5 million in potential performance bonuses, the kind that sit on entry-level deals like McKenna's and Easton Cowan's. A team that spends the season in LTIR has no room to absorb bonuses as they're earned.

Whatever gets earned becomes an overage charge on the 2027-28 cap, the same season Marchenko's raise arrives. Small risk in dollars, bad timing.

Forty-nine contracts is the other squeeze. The Aatu Raty trade this week was two bodies out for one in, which is how you make a move at 49 of 50. Every call-up from the Marlies now has a slot problem before it has a cap problem.

The three contracts that define the sheet

Best value: Matthews, $13.25 million through 2027-28. Through eight games he has 13 points in 22.0 minutes a night, per NHL data, on a team that's 3-3-2. On this sheet that's the bargain, and it's the one with two years left. The cheapest line on the roster is also its biggest open question.

Worst value: Raddysh, $8.5 million through 2033-34. Eight years and $68 million for a 30-year-old who'd never made a million dollars in a season.

The deal was bought on one 70-point year in Tampa, 22 goals and 10 power-play goals, that matched his previous two seasons combined. Through eight games he leads Toronto at 23.8 minutes a night with four assists and no goals, per NHL data.

Small sample, I know. The term isn't a sample. It runs to age 38, and the age curve for defencemen doesn't pause because the first season went fine.

The one that decides the future: Marchenko, $12.5 million from 2027-28. The comparables are on his own team, which is the problem. Knies was 23 with 66 points on a $7.75 million deal. Marchenko had 67 points, is older, and costs $4.75 million more a year starting next fall. Nylander, with the longer track record, is at $11.5 million.

Marchenko has nine points and four goals in 19.0 minutes a night so far, per NHL data, which is good second-line production at a first-line-plus price. Toronto paid the market before the player set it.

The next two summers

Summer 2027 looks quiet and isn't. Only Merzlikins' $4.43 million and a few depth deals come off. Marchenko's raise eats all of that and then some.

The cap is projected to climb about $9.5 million, and one projection still has Toronto with only about $2.4 million in room for 2027-28 with a full roster. That's the year Matthews and Cowan both become eligible for extensions, on the same day, July 1.

Summer 2028 is the choke point. Matthews, Colton Sissons, Jack Roslovic, Domi, Joshua, Teddy Blueger, Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Troy Stecher all expire. Cowan needs his second contract.

Roughly $36 million comes off, and Matthews' next number takes the biggest piece of it. One summer later, McKenna's entry-level deal ends and Bobrovsky, John Tavares and Nick Paul come off. The sheet resets twice in two years, and both resets start with a superstar's price.

Sign him now / Wait: Nobody worth extending is eligible today, so this is a July 1, 2027 answer.

Sign him now: Cowan. He has six points in 15.1 minutes a night through eight games, per NHL data, on a $900,000 entry-level deal. A second contract signed on the first eligible day prices him off this season. Waiting prices him off next season, after another year of growth and another cap bump.

Wait: Matthews. His price doesn't climb the way a kid's does. He's in his prime, not at the start of it, and the risk in his next deal is term, not AAV. Let the 2027-28 season show how many years the sheet can carry, then pay the number.

The one move the numbers say to make

Trade Oliver Ekman-Larsson. He's at $3.5 million through 2027-28, he's playing 16.9 minutes a night, per NHL data, and the blue line is the one part of this roster Chayka didn't rebuild. Johnston says the Leafs are already looking at defencemen.

Moving Ekman-Larsson for a pick does three things at once: it opens a second contract slot, it takes $3.5 million off the 2027-28 sheet before Marchenko's raise hits, and it frees the money for the upgrade the team is shopping for. The hockey and the cap point the same direction, which doesn't happen often.

The caveat

Eight games is eight games. Every usage number above can move by Thanksgiving. The LTIR space is only real while three players are out, and the team should want it to disappear.

The two cap sites don't agree on Toronto's space to the dollar, so treat the $4.9 million as a range. And the $9.5 million cap bump for 2027-28 is a projection until the league says otherwise.

What I'd watch: the bonus-overage line next June. If McKenna has a real rookie year and the Leafs spend the whole season in LTIR, that charge shows up on the 2027-28 sheet the same week Marchenko's $12.5 million does. Small money, bad timing, and the kind of line that decides whether Toronto can keep a fourth-liner it likes.