The Leafs were underwhelming in their free agency activities. They were a lot more exciting in signing their own players, something of a trend in the NHL in general. The rising salary cap means teams are a little less inclined to ditch players because they cost more as UFAs.

The signings of a handful of unexciting but serviceable AHL/NHL depth was a job well done. The chance taken on the trade for Matias Maccelli was a good risk. His cap hit isn't so very high that it matters if last year was more representative of his ability than the one before. He's not the answer to the top-six question, however.

Getting Nic Roy was a good move since there is now actual bona fide competition for the third-line centre job. And for a few other bottom six positions too. Now comes the difficult part. Finding that top-six player. I think it should be players, but perhaps that's asking too much.

What the Leafs have done is very fiscally conservative and very cautious. Which is often not fun to contemplate, but in getting a great deal with John Tavares a fair deal with Matt Knies and losing the most overpaid player on the team in Mitch Marner, they've made their cap spending more efficient than most teams who haven't just won two Cups and are going for the third can manage. Now, to be honest, if you're overpaying someone, I'd rather that be an elite player than Maccelli, Kämpf, Domi, Reaves etc. But what the Leafs didn't do was fall right into the trap of piling up Maccellis and Domis until the cap space was all gone. They could have added Mangiapane, Arvidsson and Jeannot, been at -$3M and not one meaningful amount better.

They didn't, that's good.

But I want to go back to that rising cap thing. The NHL and the NHLPA set three years of salary cap figures, semi-firmly, quite some time ago. They did this before they had serious CBA talks, and the point was to have a cap framework in place that covered the transition out of the post-Covid suppressed upper limits and into the coming years of projected revenue growth. As the CBA was finalized, they made those numbers a little more firm. And there will be some form of new process for projecting and setting the salary cap in the new CBA that takes effect in the 2026-2027 season.

These projections are built on a pretty solid foundation of current revenue growth and some sober predictions for the future. They aren't drunk on hope. However, the NHL gets the bulk of its revenue from ticket sales. They've diversified in recent years and all the forms of advertising that go by many other names have risen, and broadcast deals have expanded and will continue to expand. But all of that, if you dig down, is built off of consumer spending on entertainment. And a great many people are hesitant these days about the future health of the economies that support all that discretionary spending. Rightly in my opinion.

Prior to the Pandemic, the NHL was already gearing up for big growth. No one could have predicted the sudden change that wiped out revenues in the biggest producing cities. However, since then there has been real growth in both attendance and in the price of tickets. Before Covid, Ottawa, Florida and Arizona were franchises that couldn't fill buildings, and looked to be trying hard (Florida) but not getting prices to rise or failing entirely (the other two). Now is a very different story, and the NHL is healthy enough to raise an eyebrow at Winnipeg and Columbus. At the top end, you now need a pretty damn big discretionary budget to go to a game in New York or Toronto.

The Leafs don't have to worry about cash. But the salary cap is tied to league revenue and recessions aren't usually kind to big-ticket entertainment enterprises. Neither is stagflation, the other future possibility looming. I'm not absolutely sure that the Leafs' cautions and conservative approach to retooling the team is a choice or has been thrust upon them by their own prior decisions, good and bad, but they might actually be in a better position than many other teams if the revenue next season doesn't actually meet the growth projections. Or if the next two year's of projections get overtaken by events.

The other aspect to this issue is the economy within the closed loop of the NHL. I keep hearing that no one is tanking except Pittsburgh. Some teams are likely pretending during this key season-tickets sales period, some are likely delusional, and some are going to fail due to chance. But right now, no matter the reason, no one wants to trade anyone for anything but NHL-playable players. Unless the deal is a cap dump in part (Maccelli, Arvidsson, etc.) the trade needs a player going back.

What if you don't have any? And no, Max Domi doesn't count. If you don't have any, and you don't even have much in the way of picks, the play is to wait until the unlucky and the delusional and the pretenders all have to admit they're not getting better and that guy they've got with a couple of years left isn't helping them lose enough to make losing worth it.

I expected the Leafs to get a good winger and punt the centre problem down the road. They've done the opposite, making the move or moves yet to come the hard ones, but there was no one in free agency I would have been happy to see added.

The Leafs are a worse team today than they were at the opening of training camp last year. They almost certainly will still be when this training camp opens. Now, will they play more effectively? And who will they be when the playoffs start? That I can't say. There are opportunities all over the lineup for growth just from regression for Auston Matthews or even Simon Benoit. But there's also a big chance of the bad regression with the goalies. That's why we watch the regular season, and why it matters.

The Leafs didn't do much, but it's hard to see any missed chances or big mistakes. Why, you have to strain your exaggeration muscles by pumping up Michael Pezzetta into a horror film demon to be really mad online about the Leafs. That said, it's not hard to be uneasy about this team right now.

Now the summer truly begins. Let's talk about Nick Robertson's contract! What fun!

From The Branches