Last week, Frank Seravalli reported he expected the Leafs to sign both PTO forwards once they sorted out their injury situation. On Friday's episode of '32 Thoughts' Elliotte Friedman confirmed the Leafs will sign both in an attempt to squeeze every dollar they can out of the cap.
When Pacioretty signed his PTO, his agent said a deal was already in place, but there was no such guarantee for the hometown Lorentz. In signing both Lorentz and Pacioretty, Friedman said that the Leafs could start the season with Connor Dewar and Jani Hakanpaa on LTIR depending on how the next few days go and how they progress from their injuries.
Placing both on LTIR would give the Leafs just over $2.5M in cap space. That would give them the room to keep everyone together and give them more time to sort out their roster instead of making rash decisions the way Brad Treliving did last year when he traded Sam Lafferty to keep Fraser Minten.
The Leafs have one pre-season game remaining and if there are no cuts made before Saturday's game, it will be interesting to see how much of that lineup will be regulars and how much of it will be 'bubble' players.
POLL | ||
4 OCTOBRE | 2933 ANSWERS Insider Reveals Leafs Expected to Get to Within 50 Cents of the Salary Cap With Pair of Signings Who is most likely to be traded or waived by the Leafs? | ||
Liljegren | 1117 | 38.1 % |
Timmins | 656 | 22.4 % |
Jarnkrok | 627 | 21.4 % |
Kampf | 533 | 18.2 % |
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