The Toronto Maple Leafs and Steven Stamkos

As each day passes without Steven Stamkos signing an extension with the Tampa Bay Lightning, the speculation in Leafs Nation grows that perhaps he might actually become a free agent and suit up for the Toronto Maple Leaf to start the 2016/2017 season.

Whether Steven Stamkos will become a free agent or even whether he wants to become a Toronto Maple Leaf is irrelevant to this article. The relevant point is whether the Toronto Maple Leafs should even pursue Steven Stamkos if he becomes a free agent after the 2015/2016 season.

To make that decision, it might help to do a simple chart of the pros and cons.

It has to be assumed that Stamkos and his team are looking for a “max” contract (8 years) with at least comparable dollars ($10.5 million) to the Toews and Kane extensions. That equates out to $84 million over eight years. 

Looking at the last con point from a Lightning perspective, they already have $48.535 million committed to 14 players for the 2016/2017 season. After adding in a Stamkos contract at the bargain-basement rate of $10.5 million/season, the salary cap number becomes $59.035 million for 15 players. Assuming the salary cap rises to approximately $74 million by the start of the 2016/2017 season – that would give Tampa approximately $15 million to add 8 more players to their roster – a difficult but not impossible proposition.

Complicating the difficult (but not impossible!) situation above is the fact that at the end of this coming season (2015/2016) the Lightning will have 5 players who will be Restricted Free Agents (RFAs) – Alex Killorn, J.T. Brown, Vladislav Namestnikov, Nikita Kucherov, and Cedric Paquette. All 5 of those names played in last season’s playoffs – 4 of them playing most, if not all, of the games. At the end of the 2015/2016 season, in addition to Stamkos, there will be 1 other Unrestricted Free Agent (UFA) who also played all of Tampa’s playoff games last season – Braydon Coburn. As 5 of these 6 players were relied upon to make contributions during Tampa’s long playoff run to the Stanley Cup finals last season, presumably retaining their services would be a desirable outcome for Tampa. In that scenario, assuming all 5 players would be looking for healthy raises, Tampa could find themselves very close to the salary cap with another 3 players still needed to fill out their roster. The difficulty rating has just risen a notch or two.

Looking ahead to the end of the 2016/2017 season, 5 of Tampa’s key players for the future – Tyler Johnson, Ondrej Palat, Andrej Sustr, Andrej Vasilevsky, and Victor Hedman are scheduled to become RFAs or UFAs. The difficult situation from the end of the 2015/2016 season has likely become an almost impossible proposition.

Being the astute G.M. that he has proven himself to be, no doubt Steve Yzerman and his crack team have been running through these scenarios (and more!) since the end of Tampa’s season. The two difficult scenarios they likely keep finding themselves in are the scenarios where they keep Steven Stamkos and risk losing some of their younger core players, or they lose Steven Stamkos in the hopes of being able to keep their younger core players.

As the second scenario has the most interest for Maple Leaf fans, let’s take a closer look at that one.

Up front, let’s dismiss the notion that Steve Yzerman is going to be able to trade Steven Stamkos and get back anything of value. After all, which G.M. is going to offer more than a bag-o-pucks in a trade for Stamkos when he knows full well that if Stamkos hasn’t signed a contract extension up to the point when he’s traded, Stamkos is going home to Toronto. In this scenario, in a strange way, it almost makes sense for Yzerman to keep Stamkos and hope that with him the Lightning can win the Stanley Cup they came oh-so-close to winning last season. Not sure how well the ownership group in Tampa would react to losing Stamkos for nothing, but everyone getting their picture taken around the Cup might help alleviate the sting a bit!

With the above situation front-of-mind, you can believe that Brendan Shanahan and his crack team have also been running through scenarios to see if it would make sense to pursue Steven Stamkos if he was to become a free agent at the end of the 2015/2016 season.

No matter the different scenarios that are run or the ways it is approached, the main sticking point for the Leafs should be the last con point – he’ll be expensive. If Stamkos was to become a free agent and look to join the Leafs, the longest term contract the Leafs could offer him would be 7 years. Taking the conservative estimate above of $10.5 million/year over 8 years (or $84 million), the Leafs would have to give Stamkos $12 million/year over 7 years just to MATCH that offer!

Don’t get me wrong. Stamkos is a great player and would certainly go a long way towards getting the Leafs’ rebuild on the rails and heading down the tracks in the right direction – but is he really worth $12 million/year? Or more accurately, can the Leafs afford to tie up that much money in 1 player for 7 years? Wouldn’t the Leafs find themselves in the same conundrum that the Tampa Bay Lightning find themselves in now?

Of course, until such time as the G.T.A. born Stamkos signs a contract extension with Tampa, the speculation in Leafs Nation will run rampant, but for the Toronto Maple Leafs, it should definitely be a buyer-beware situation.