How should the Maple Leafs spend $20 million in salary-cap space this summer?

Finally, a little cap relief for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

After a total increase of just $4 million over the past six seasons, the NHL’s salary cap is going to jump more than that just this offseason, rising 5.39 percent to a record $88 million.

That increase is going to more than get eaten up by new extensions for William Nylander and Auston Matthews, but further breathing room comes from the fact Toronto has so many expiring contracts.

Tyler Bertuzzi, Max Domi, Ilya Samsonov, TJ Brodie and John Klingberg alone accounted for more than $21 million last season, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume the Leafs should be able to get more bang for their buck with those dollars next season. (In fact, Samsonov, Brodie and Klingberg’s declines were some of the bigger reasons they took a step back from 2022-23.)

This year’s free-agent class isn’t loaded with superstar talent, but there are a lot of first- and second-line forwards and top-four defencemen on Chris Johnston’s big board.

The Leafs aren’t as loaded with cap space as some of their competition — the Utah Yeti, for example, are listed with $43 million in cash — but GM Brad Treliving currently has more wiggle room than 15 other clubs, a group that includes almost every contending team. And that’s before potentially moving out one of his stars.

For the sake of this post, I’m going to assume The Core Five players with no-movement clauses are staying. If one of them is moved, the cap picture potentially gets more optimistic, depending on what comes back in return.

Here is who the Leafs currently have signed, with a little more than three weeks to go until free agency.

With just shy of $20 million to spend, the biggest holes at first glance are in goal and on defence, where Brodie, Joel Edmundson, Mark Giordano and Ilya Lyubushkin are all headed to market.

What’s interesting is when we add in the restricted free agents, it mostly serves to further fill out a crowded forward group. Especially when you consider that Easton Cowan is likely to get a first-month audition out of training camp in the fall.

On the lineup below, I’ve placed Cowan on the roster and projected salaries for RFAs Timothy Liljegren, Nick Robertson and Connor Dewar based on their closest historical comparables on one-year contracts. (Noah Gregor wasn’t given a qualifying offer here and becomes a UFA.)

At this point, I don’t think it benefits the Leafs to give these their RFAs term when that would mean increasing the average annual value of their deals. Not when they have so many needs elsewhere.

To create $1.1 million more cap flexibility, I’ve also sent down Conor Timmins, who will likely be on the bubble to make the team again.

Maybe he clears waivers. Maybe he doesn’t.

That’s 18 players on the roster — 13 forwards, four defencemen and a goaltender — and $15.6 million still to spend.

Theoretically, they could shift Pontus Holmberg or Dewar to centre and not need to add anyone up front, although that would leave them obviously weaker than they were this past season given the absence of Bertuzzi and Domi.

A better play, in my opinion, would be to:

1. Go relatively economical in goal. There’s not a bona fide No. 1 available in free agency, and I expect it’ll be extremely difficult for Treliving to pry either Jacob Markstrom or Linus Ullmark out of Calgary and Boston — especially when teams like the New Jersey Devils can dangle a top-10 pick in return. That leaves someone like Laurent Brossoit as a tandem option to split starts with Joseph Woll, who, it should be said, Leafs management remains very, very high on.

Brossoit hasn’t played a ton, but he has put up good numbers the past few seasons. His top priority as a 31-year-old UFA is going to be to go to a good team where he can start frequently. The Leafs fit the bill, and my understanding is there is mutual interest.

It’s hard to project exactly what he’ll cost given how thin the UFA goalie class is, but my guess is it’ll be a relatively short-term deal for around $3 million.

2. Chase the big fish on defence and at centre. In an ideal world, you add a top-pair RD option to play with Morgan Rielly. And you find a centre who can challenge John Tavares for the 2C role and balance out your top-nine forwards a lot better than they were last season.

Is that possible?

I think so. If someone like Brossoit (or Anthony Stolarz) is their guy in net, that leaves close to $13 million to spend and three roster holes. One of those can be a cheap third-pair defenceman, leaving $12 million or so to split between a RD and a centre.

Now, with the cap going up, and projected to go up even more aggressively in the future, it’s possible the UFA contracts this year get way out of hand and the Leafs get outbid for some of the top talent. (I’ve already heard from player agents who are excited about the possibility of how lucrative July 1 is going to be compared to the past few years.)

But there are enough UFA options on the blue line and down the middle that Treliving should be able to add difference makers at both positions this summer. If they fail to get a centre, I believe they’ll readjust and focus on bolstering their depth at wing, with someone like veteran David Perron one key target.

3. Perhaps most importantly, try to shed more misused salary to change the mix and improve higher in the lineup.

It’s worth noting again that this cap picture above is before any trades are made. And there are more candidates to be dealt than just the ones with big contracts and NMCs.

Liljegren at $2.1 million on the third pair, for example, stands out as a potential trade chip, given he may not fit with new coach Craig Berube, stylistically. The Leafs could also move on from someone(s) like David Kämpf or Dewar and redirect those savings to add impact UFAs.

A couple subtractions like that could mean the Leafs have closer to $14.5 million to address two of their biggest needs, which would allow them to be bigger game hunters for players like Brady Skjei, Matt Roy, Matt Duchene, Perron and others.

I know a lot of the fan base is, understandably, down on the team in general after yet another postseason disappointment. But there are legitimate ways for them to take a step forward from last season’s meh 10th-place, 102-point finish and ice a deeper lineup in the fall. If they hit on a decent tandem goalie, add an impact defenceman and get stronger down the middle, they’re unquestionably a better team in all three areas.

Plus, if they can add a decent UFA piece or two with term this July, they’ll also have Mitch Marner and Tavares’ $21.9 million potentially coming off the books and another significant cap bump in the summer of 2025.

The Leafs can be big players in free agency two years in a row, in other words.

So, change is coming to Toronto’s cap structure and playing style, no matter what. And it’s imperative they start down that road in the next few weeks by making smart bets on a few new veterans who are — unlike a lot of the mercenaries they’ve brought in on one-year deals in the past — probably going to be staying a while. Add in the potential impact of someone like Cowan and further growth from young players like Matthew Knies and Woll, and there’s room for optimism.

I can’t sit here and guarantee you it will all make a difference in the postseason. But the alternative would be to whiff on these key decisions, lock into some of the wrong players in the next few weeks, and take another step back.

Which, I think we can all agree, the Leafs can’t afford to do right now.

(Top photo of Brad Treliving: R.J. Johnston / Toronto Star via Getty Images)