The Toronto Maple Leafs are WAY over the salary cap and the clock is ticking for them to get compliant

Yesterday when the NHL's arbitrator awarded Ilya Samsonov a salary or $3,550,000 it finally gave the Toronto Maple Leafs clarity on their salary cap situation. The Maple Leafs are officially $12,381,450 over the $83,500,000 salary cap. The Maple Leafs have officially placed Jake Muzzin on long-term injured reserve to bring themselves under the league's 10% off season threshold.

It has been long assumed that the Maple Leafs salary troubles will be eliminated by trading Matt Murray. However, given the Leafs current cap situation, not even clearing Murray's cap hit will make them cap compliant. That makes a buyout of Murray even more unlikely.

There is some prevailing thoughts that the Maple Leafs will simply place Matt Murray on long-term injured reserve. However, this requires the involvement of doctors who will have to clear Murray to be placed on LTIR.

So what other options do the Maple Leafs have? Multiple rumors have surfaced that the Leafs have been shopping veteran defenseman TJ Brodie. Clearing Brodie would help the Leafs clear $5,000,000 in cap space, but would still require additional moves.

The only other option at this time would be a potential trade to send William Nylander out of town. The question remains though, can the Leafs survive removing 40 goals from their offense?

The Maple Leafs will have a 48 hour buyout window beginning Wednesday afternoon so only time will tell what the Leafs plan on doing.

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