While it only seemed like a matter of time before the Toronto Maple Leafs locked defenceman Jake McCabe into a contract extension, the two sides finally made the move official Monday morning, announcing a five-year deal carrying an annual average value of $4.51 million per season. The deal, which begins next year, takes McCabe through to the 2029/30 NHL season and offers yet another show of the direction the team is moving toward.
Deal Provides Great Value Today
The most important part of the extension for the Maple Leafs is that it projects positively in the immediate term. McCabe, one of their better all-around defencemen since joining the team in spring 2023, was originally brought in with more value in his contract than just his talent level. The Leafs offered extra draft capital to the Chicago Blackhawks to retain 50% of his salary, meaning they acquired two and a half years of his services at just $2 million per year.
Avoiding an overly significant raise was paramount to their immediate success, given raises that have gone to players like Auston Matthews, William Nylander, Max Domi, and Joseph Woll, likely raises to players like Matthew Knies and Mitch Marner should they continue with the team, and the summer signings of players like Chris Tanev and Oliver Ekman-Larsson. A pay cut or outright removal for John Tavares will alleviate some of the team’s concerns next year, as will an increasing salary cap, but every dollar will matter, and as such, the team could only go so far with McCabe’s raise.
They seem to have accomplished this by making this deal. The announced price tag is lower than most public projection models have estimated his salary. Dating back to 2022/23, when Toronto acquired him mid-season, McCabe ranks 36th among NHL defencemen in Evolving Hockey’s “Goals Above Replacement” metric and 44th in Hockey Reference’s “Point Shares” metric. In simpler metrics, McCabe ranks 66th in total points and 74th in total ice time. Meanwhile, the deal carries the 77th-highest cap hit.
McCabe’s ability to contribute on the scoresheet at a second-pair level while being able to play tough minutes in a physical fashion makes him a versatile and valuable commodity, especially for a team that has been lacking a player who can do a bit of everything at a top level since Jake Muzzin’s injuries forced him into an early retirement. As such, it makes sense why they’d like to keep him a part of the current group, and all signs point to his immediate salary being below the curve at the league-wide level.
It’s Never Been More “Now Or Never”
If there is a knock against the deal, it lies within the term. McCabe is already 31 years old and will be 32 when he plays his first game on the new deal, meaning it will take him to his age-36 season. Going back to Point Shares, McCabe put up 5.4 of them last season, which is good for 54th in the league. There have been just 84 occurrences of players who are 35 or older putting up at least five point shares in a season since the salary cap era began in 2005/06. A little over half of those are repeat occurrences, leaving a list of just 39 individual players. A large contingent of those 39 are either Hall of Famers or players on the cusp.
As much as one likes McCabe, it’s unlikely he’ll join that company of graceful agers as a player who has never been seen as a top-pairing talent and one who plays a physical game that can wear on the body. He’ll likely be closer to replacement level by the end of the deal. That’s the risk you take to get value on the front of the deal, but it’s also one that Toronto is repeatedly making on their blue line. Morgan Rielly and Chris Tanev, 30 and 34, respectively, are also signed through to 2030, and Oliver Ekman-Larsson, 33, is signed through to 2028. In a league that’s only gotten younger in the past generation, the deep Toronto blue line relies on making the most of the slower part of their defenders’ decline years.
You understand to an extent where Toronto is coming from here, having accomplished little with their contention window since it opened in 2017/18. They need at least one deep run in the Auston Matthews era to not make this feel like a historic fumbling of the bag, even with their sustained regular-season success. But it’s hard not to look at these deals as a full package and not see knots forming in their future depth chart. It’s not conducive to sustained success, but now that they’ve committed to chasing that one shot, it makes sense to be less cautious with each passing addition. In for a penny, in for a pound.
Maple Leafs to Win Atlantic Division
Deferrals Could Hint At McCabe’s Future
Notable in the structure of McCabe’s contract is that he opted for deferred payment on two of his years’ signing bonuses, deferring $3 million on his Year 2 signing bonus and $2.5 million on his Year 3 signing bonus.
While he also took the typical front-loaded signing bonus on Year 1, accepting a league minimum salary and $5.225 million lump sum on July 1st, that structure fades in the back years, turning into just $1 million in bonus in 2029 and all-salary in 2030 – which would make the deal easier to buy out for Toronto in the back years, should it come to it.
Deferred salary became newsworthy when the Carolina Hurricanes used it in their extensions of Jaccob Slavin and Seth Jarvis this summer. Deferred deals typically aren’t that player advantageous compared to getting the money up front and investing it yourself – something the Leafs have had no problem facilitating in the past. But perhaps the player likes the illusion of having signed for a higher average salary with interest factored in, or perhaps the player hopes to be in a far away, tax-advantageous place when they accept their deferred salary years after the deal is done.
How well that second option works remains to be tested, but maybe McCabe is giving himself the option to find out. The Wisconsin native might feel like this will be his last NHL deal, or is really banking on one of the seven no-state-tax teams requiring his services in the summer of 2030.
Maple Leafs Odds Update
| Futures Bet | Preseason | Today |
|---|---|---|
| Make Playoffs | -370 | -360 |
| Win Atlantic Division | +250 | +320 |
| Win Presidents’ Trophy | +1100 | +1600 |
| Win Stanley Cup | +1400 | +1200 |
The books are in a pretty interesting spot with the Maple Leafs at the moment. They feel less enthusiastic about their odds of being at the top of the regular season charts than they did heading into opening night but slightly more bullish on their odds of succeeding once they get there.
It remains to be seen whether that’s something in their models aligning closer to playoff success or simply a matter of people rushing to make their Stanley Cup bets before last week’s three-game losing streak.
