Making sense of the Leafs' cap situation

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I spent much of Tuesday en route to Pittsburgh for Wednesday's game and missed out on some of the commentary in the wake of Jeff Finger heading to the Marlies. What's well worth considering after that move is how dramatically it improves the team's cap situation.

Finger's salary is $3.5-million a season for this year and next, and after the first six days of the NHL season, he has cost the Leafs $112,903 against their year end cap. In the NHL's salary system, players' contracts are divided into 186 chunks this season - one for each day of the season - and every day they're on the roster, that figure is counted against the cap.

Not having Finger's $18,817 per day hit will make a big difference in the long run. While things were tight had he stayed on the roster full time, Toronto now has roughly $4-million in salary cap space.

With a big-time assist from capgeek.com for the figures, here's how I believe their situation looks currently:

Keeping in mind that the Leafs are working with a $58-million salary cap ($1.4-million lower than most teams due to a bonus overage from last season), here are some of the key totals to keep in mind.

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Bonus cushion: $4.35-million

This is the maximum a team can exceed the cap due to bonuses. It is always 7.5 per cent of the total salary cap, and Toronto's is slightly lower due to the fact they have a lower total cap figure. (Per Leafs assistant GM Claude Loiselle: "Not everyone has the same bonus cushion because it's based on your cap number.")

Total projected salaries: $53.27-million

If everything stays the same and these 22 players play the rest of the season without injury or roster changes, this is how much Toronto is projected to spend on salaries (before bonuses).

Max total bonuses: $5.12-million

This is the total for Schenn, Bozak and Gunnarsson in terms of bonuses. All three are on entry-level contracts and can in theory earn this full amount. However, there are different types of bonuses (Schedule A and Schedule B) and it's very unlikely any of these three will win a major league award and earn any Schedule B bonuses. Schedule A bonuses max out at $850,000 per player, so even if Schenn and Bozak earn that amount and Gunnarsson earns his full bonuses, the Leafs will have to spend only roughly $1.87-million extra than the "projected salaries" figure. Consider this the highest likely bonus payout for Toronto this season.

Cap space before bonuses: $4.73-million

Without any bonuses factored in, this is how much cap space the Leafs are on track to have.

Cap space after factoring in bonuses that exceed max bonus cushion: $3.96-million

At the start of the season, teams have to account for their cap assuming every player with a bonus will reach it. Because Toronto has more potential bonuses than the cushion allows, this overage counts against the cap (for now). That's another $770,000 off the cap.

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Confused yet?

These figures will definitely shift over time as players are injured and call-ups and trades are made, but the pertinent numbers are the two final ones. Toronto can currently add nearly $4-million in salary, and even if its young players (at least the ones on the roster at the moment) hit all the bonuses that are plausible to hit, they have about $2.9-million ($4.73-million minus $1.87-million) space to work with without going into the bonus cushion.

The more time that goes along in the season, the easier it becomes to add salary. Six days into the season, a $3-million player has $2.9-million remaining on his salary. Two months in and there is only $2-million left. By the trade deadline, you're down to $750,000 or so, meaning a team with a couple million to spare could significantly load up.

I'm going to be tied up a lot of Wednesday here in Pittsburgh, but if you have any cap-related questions feel free to send me an email and I can post the answers here, if warranted.

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On a related note, a few weeks ago I discussed the Finger situation with the Leafs capologist, Claude Loiselle, for this article (something that seemed to prompt Brian Burke's defence of the player at the time). Here are three questions I asked Loiselle in that interview that weren't used in the initial story.

Is the goal to avoid having a bonus overage again this year?

Loiselle: "Absolutely. And it's very hard to plan because there are injuries. And there are performance issues. At the end of the day, it's the product that will determine where we are cap-wise."

How much space do the Leafs need to keep free during the season for injuries, etc.?

Loiselle: "The key factor is your goaltender. You can play with 17 skaters; you can't play with one goalie. You need to be able to call a goalie up. Ideally, you want at least $1.5-million in cap space. Sometimes that's not possible.

"At the very least, you want to be able to call up one of your young goaltenders to play their role."

Does the fact young players have large bonuses make it harder to call them up from the minors (Kadri, Caputi, Rynnas and others have them)?

Loiselle: "You're going to play the best players out there. It doesn't make any sense to send the kid down to the minors if he's got bonuses if he can help you win. That's a discussion that we always have with agents - agents are trying to add on all these bonuses. You tell them, you're not helping your client because the key is to play in the NHL. Adding on these frivolous bonuses, it's just making it so much more difficult to surround that player with better players because you're eating into the cap all the time."