Maple Leafs New Goalie Helps the Team Before He Even Plays

Sometimes a hockey trade makes sense because of the player coming in; sometimes it makes sense because of what that player lets a team do. Elvis Merzlikins is unlikely to help the Toronto Maple Leafs much on the ice anytime soon. He's expected to miss four to six months while recovering from a shoulder injury. But another part of this trade could be pretty important to the Leafs right away.

The salary cap. And in Toronto, that may be almost as interesting as the goaltending.

Merzlikins’ Injury Creates Cap Room.

Merzlikins has a $5.4-million cap hit, but Columbus retained 18 percent of his contract in the trade. That leaves Toronto carrying roughly $4.43 million of his cap hit. Normally, adding that kind of money to a team that is already tight against the salary cap would create a problem. But Merzlikins will be out for a long time.

That means the Maple Leafs can place him on long-term injured reserve, or LTIR, and gain additional room to operate above the salary cap while he's unavailable. The $4.43 million doesn't simply disappear from the books. Instead, LTIR allows Toronto to exceed the normal cap ceiling, creating additional spending room based on Merzlikins’ qualifying cap hit and the Leafs’ cap position when he is placed on LTIR.

That's a pretty useful piece of bookkeeping. Especially for a team that has spent much of the summer squeezing dollars into every available corner.

The Interesting Part Isn't Just the Money.

The easy way to look at this is to say the Maple Leafs have acquired an injured goalie. The more interesting way is to look at what that injured goalie allows them to do. Toronto has Sergei Bobrovsky and Anthony Stolarz to handle the crease while Merzlikins recovers. So his injury doesn’t create an immediate hockey hole.

Instead, Merzlikins can sit on LTIR while the Maple Leafs use the resulting flexibility to carry the roster they actually want. That's important after the summer John Chayka has had. There is another wrinkle, too. When Merzlikins eventually gets healthy, Toronto has a legitimate NHL goaltender available as insurance. Maybe he becomes the No. 3 goalie. Maybe he spends some time in the AHL. Maybe circumstances change, and he gets NHL games. Nobody knows yet.

From a Salary-Cap Perspective, That’s the Beauty of the Trade.

The Maple Leafs don't need Merzlikins to solve their goaltending problem today. They can use his extended absence to create financial breathing room while Bobrovsky and Stolarz do the actual work. That's a strange sentence to write about a new goalie.

But this is the salary-cap era. Sometimes a player can help his new team before he ever puts on its sweater for a game.