Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet: Believe that no matter what happened in the playoffs this year, Toronto Maple Leafs GM Kyle Dubas would give his big four forwards – Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, John Tavares and William Nylander – one more season together.
From understanding Dubas’ promise to Nylander to not trade him was just immediately after he signed. Nylander’s salary the next four seasons drops below his cap hit. Kasperi Kapanen‘s salary drops in the next two, Andreas Johnsson and Alexander Kerfoot will after next season.
Matthews and Tavares aren’t going anywhere. Though there were some rumors that they could consider trading Marner, it would be a surprise if they did.
Goaltender Frederik Andersen has a year left on his deal and they’ll need to make a decision on him. The goaltending market around the league could be interesting this offseason.
Would guess that the Leafs could look at adding someone with a bit of bite to their blue line. Maybe they would have interest in Mark Borowiecki or Radko Gudas.
Depending on if the Maple Leafs bring Jason Spezza, the Leafs could look at Joe Thornton again. Don’t know if they could have both Spezza and Thornton on their roster.
Terry Koshan of the Toronto Sun: Toronto Maple Leafs pending UFA forward Kyle Clifford was only used on the fourth line. The Leafs could use someone with his type of attitude in their top nine. It’s not known if he’ll be back.
Frederik Andersen has a year left on his deal and GM Kyle Dubas will need to make a decision on him. Do they want to commit long-term to Andersen? Can they even fit him in?
Everyone knows they need to improve their blue line.
Kristen Shilton of TSN: The Maple Leafs president Brendan Shanahan still has faith in Dubas, Keefe and their core players.
“I have complete faith in Kyle as a general manager, in Sheldon as a coach, and complete confidence in what we’re going to do here in Toronto,” said Leafs president Brendan Shanahan on a Zoom call with reporters Wednesday.
“We’re determined to get results. It has to do with a mindset; it has to do with some personnel issues. But there are no excuses being made here. It’s really about finding solutions, so that we get over that hump. We really do believe that the core guys certainly want to make those changes.”
GM Kyle Dubas has faith in the core as well.
The Maple Leafs have a projected $4.591 in salary cap space with pending UFAs in Tyson Barrie and Cody Ceci, and RFAs Travis Dermott and Ilya Mikheyev. Dubas doesn’t think they are in as bad financial shape as everyone seems to think they are, or that they won’t able to add to their roster.
“We’re not up against the cap, contrary to everyone’s belief,” Dubas said. “I think that the players we’ve committed the salaries to are all extremely talented, and they all produce, and they’re all very young, and they’re going to continue to improve and get better. It falls on me to continue to build around that group and roll from there.”