RUMOR: Leafs Calle Jarnkrok Could Be Leaving Toronto Soon

The Leafs are currently well over the NHL's hard salary cap. They are allowed to be over the cap in the offseason, but as opening night looms large, the team is going to be forced to find a way to shed cap quickly.

Jarnkrok Could Be a Cap Casualty

The Leafs do have two significant LTIR candidates in Matt Murray and Jake Muzzin. Muzzin, in particular, may not return at all this season. Even with both of those players on LTIR though, the Leafs are still just a hair under 3 million over the cap.

Interestingly, Jarnkrok has not played in either pre-season game with the Leafs so far, and as of today, has not been assigned to either of their on-ice groups. Jarnkrok has a cap hit of 2.1 million dollars for each of the next three seasons. Removing him from the lineup would leave them over the cap by just 843K, a more manageable total.

Jarnkrok's absence from pre-season remains a mystery

Leafs Nation News has suggested that if Jarnkrok was injured, we likely would have heard about it by now.



There has already been a lot of speculation as to how the Leafs might handle their current cap situation. Their options are certainly limited, but they include trades and or playing without a full roster, which the team did do a couple of times last season.

All of this leads us the believe the most likely outcome here involves a Jarnkrok trade and it may be imminent. Leafs PR is usually pretty open when players are dealing with injuries or personal matters so those options do not seem very likely.