Kulemin and Mitchell Return to Toronto

The Maple Leafs made a couple of signings on Friday, putting pen to paper with both Nikolai Kulemin and John Mitchell. Kulemin signed a 2-year deal worth $2.35 million against the cap each year and Mitchell signed a 1-year deal worth $725,000. Kulemin looked like he was a tough player to re-sign, according to some of the reports out there about their negotiations, while Mitchell was not qualified by the Leafs as a restricted free agent, but that didn't seem to stop the Leafs from signing him.

Kulemin had 16 goals and 20 assists in 78 games for the Leafs in 2010, while Mitchell had 6 goals and 17 assists in 60 games. Kulemin is a middle of the pack scorer for your fantasty pools, while Mitchell was just outside of the pickable rankings. I would be expecting a lot of the same in 2011.

Forwards	Defense	Goalies
Phil Kessel	Tomas Kaberle	Jonas Gustavsson
Kris Versteeg	Dion Phaneuf	J-S Giguere
Nikolai Kulemin	Francois Beauchemin
Mikhail Grabovski	Luke Schenn
Colby Armstrong	Carl Gunnarsson
Tyler Bozak	Jeff Finger
Fredrik Sjostrom	Mike Komisarek
Mike Brown
Colton Orr

The Leafs have changed dramatically already in this off-season, adding some big pieces like Kris Versteeg and Colby Armstrong to the mix, which should make them a little harder to play against in 2011.

Now, the Leafs look to be in a bit of salary cap trouble after these signings, which might necessitate the move of Kaberle out of town.  Right now, the Leafs have 19 players signed on at a cap rate of $55 million and then they have a buyout on the books and bonus penalty of $1.4 million, which takes them all the way up to $57.4 million, which only leaves them $2 million left in cap space for 2011.  A trade for Kaberle may have to involve some cap savings for the Maple Leafs, if they want to have a full roster by opening night.