McCabe cashes in with $22.55 million Leafs contract
The Toronto Maple Leafs will be seeing a lot more of Jake McCabe over the coming years.
The Leafs announced today that the organization has re-signed the defenceman to a five-year contract, worth an annual average value of $4.51 million.
The deal will run through the 2029-30 season, with McCabe currently on the final year of a four-year contract.
Toronto originally acquired McCabe in 2023 in a trade with the Chicago Blackhawks, who had originally signed him to his current deal. He has three assists in nine games this season, while putting up nine goals and 207 assists in 103 games with Toronto. Prior to his time in Chicago and Toronto, McCabe spent eight seasons with the Buffalo Sabres.
Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman added in a tweet that there’s deferred money as part of the deal in between the second and third years of the deal, which helps to slightly lower the contract’s annual average value.
There is money deferred as part of this deal (between years 2 and 3 of the extension).
Drops the AAV from $4.7M-ish to $4.51M https://t.co/j1sjpuaZ1q
— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) October 28, 2024
At age 31, McCabe’s new deal will likely be the last major deal of his NHL career and almost undoubtedly the largest contract he’ll sign. It helps solidify a piece of Toronto’s blue line for the coming future, though there are always obvious concerns about players hitting the second half of their NHL career with little certainty about how well their bodies will hold up to the grind of an 82-game pro hockey season.
While the new deal won’t kick in until next season, McCabe won’t exactly have a ton of time to go celebrate his new contract. On Monday, the Leafs are visiting the Winnipeg Jets, with puck drop set for 7:30 pm ET on that contest.
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