When you’re a team that operates near the salary cap ceiling, free agency is a time to try to bring in undervalued talent rather than throw money at the big fish.
For the Toronto Maple Leafs, this is the situation they’ve found themselves in for a few seasons now. While the flat cap world has hurt Toronto by keeping them near the salary cap without the anticipated growth of the cap over the past couple of years, there is a bit of a silver lining to be found.
As every team has to deal with the ramifications of a stagnant salary cap, it has resulted in teams becoming much warier of arbitration for their restricted free agents. For another year in a row, this has resulted in multiple intriguing mid-20s players becoming available on the open market due to team’s non-tendering their restricted free agents either due to a qualifying offer that is too high or an arbitration case they want no part of.
Last summer, GM Kyle Dubas and the Maple Leafs dipped into the non-tendered UFA market quite a bit. David Kampf, one of their best signings, was one of these players, having been non-tendered by Chicago. Ondrej Kase was another, who was let go by Boston due …

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Author: Kyle Cushman / The Leafs Nation