The Toronto Maple Leafs would be willing to trade three players to create cap space to improve their team, according to NHL insider Chris Johnston.
The Maple Leafs are currently over the salary cap by $1.5 million, according to CapFriendly, but that does include the Jani Hakanpaa whose contract has not been made official due to injury concerns.
However, according to Johnston, Toronto is open to trading Calle Jarnkrok, David Kampf, and Timothy Liljegren to create cap space.
“They would look at moving Kampf, Jarnkrok, or Timothy Liljegren in the right deal.
I should be very clear, that is not to say they are trying to get rid of them at all costs, but I think that because of the Leafs’ salary cap, they are pretty tight up against it.
Really, at this point of the off-season, they blueline looks different, obviously made the moves in net.
But, I think they will have to get creative to address any changes they want to make at forward,” Johnston said on The Chris Johnston Show on July 4.
“Those types of players could be had, but I don’t have any reason to believe anything is close or will happen.
Entering this offseason, they were open-minded about that.
The reason those players have the contracts they do, they do provide a function, it’s just if they could upgrade by moving those players to create the cap room, I think they do so,” Johnston added.
Jarnkrok has two years left on his deal that pays him $2.1 million per season. Kampf also has two years left on his deal that will pay him $2.4 million per year.
Liljegren, the lone defenseman mentioned, just signed a new two-year deal worth $3 million per season, but despite the new contract has been mentioned in trade rumors.
