The Toronto Maple Leafs Have Cap Space For Not One But Two Star Players

This season some of the Toronto Maple Leafs' best depth players are players not expected to factor in.

On defense, Timothy Liljegren is finally showing the potential he has had all this time. Connor Timmins is playing far better than anyone expected him to. Jake McCabe has also found a bit of a fountain of youth and played quite well in a bigger role than expected.

Of the forward group both Noah Gregor and Nick Robertson have stepped up big time. Gregor was a camp invite who earned his way onto the team and has continued proving his worth. Robertson is much like Liljegren showing some flashes of the potential that made him a top prospect.

The breakout of these types of players has made other individuals expendable.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have a major opportunity to create a ton of salary cap space heading into the trade deadline.

The team has already placed John Klingberg on LTIR with his season-ending injury. If Ryan Reaves' injury keeps him out for the year that would be another 1.3 million dollars.

The emergence of Joseph Woll as the starting goaltender has made Ilya Samsonov potentially expendable as well. This would clear another 3-plus million dollars.

Finally, trading away the struggling TJ Brodie could net the Maple Leafs a huge 5 million dollars in salary cap space. This would give the Maple Leafs a total of around 12 million dollars to use.

This much salary cap space would provide plenty of money for GM Brad Treliving to pursue multiple elite-level players. While not all of these moves are likely to happen even one or two could net the Maple Leafs a big fish in a trade.