Auston Matthews and the Toronto Maple Leafs are still shopping, according to Elliotte Friedman's latest 32 Thoughts column.
Friedman wrote Thursday that Toronto is still hopeful to add another difference maker before camp opens.
It's not hard to see why. The Maple Leafs finished with 78 points and a -46 goal differential, 28th overall in the league.
Elliotte Friedman: I think Toronto is...still hopeful to add another difference maker.
They also closed the year on a seven-game skid, going 2-7-1 over their final ten games.
New head coach Jim Hiller inherited that mess this summer. He was hired on June 17th to try to fix it.
The problem is the books. Matthews carries a $13,250,000 cap hit, second-highest in the entire NHL.
Nylander isn't far behind at $11,500,000, tenth overall league-wide.
The cap number that complicates every trade rumor
That's over $24 million committed to two players who couldn't drag Toronto out of a rough stretch on their own.
Matthews put up 53 points in 60 games this season. Nylander led the group with 79 points across 65 appearances.
John Tavares, at 35, still chipped in 71 points over a full 82-game slate. But he's not walking through the door as some fresh addition.
So where does the extra money come from? Friedman didn't say, and that's the part fans should sit with.
Adding real punch at the top of a lineup when two forwards already eat up nearly a quarter of the cap isn't impossible. It's just not simple. Think of it like trying to add a new room onto a house that's already maxed out its foundation.
Toronto leaned on depth pieces like Jack Roslovic and Nick Paul this year. Neither one changed the shape of this roster.
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Bringing in a real difference maker probably means moving money out first. Nobody in Friedman's report named who that is, or what Toronto's willing to give up to get there.
Should the Maple Leafs trade a core piece to free up cap space for a difference maker?
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