The little deals add up, and for Dave Nonis and the Toronto Maple Leafs, that might mean Cody Franson is firing slap shots from the point for another team next year.

According to TSN's Darren Dreger, the Leafs might not have the cap space to give Franson the deal he wants.

Living through the JFJ era was torture for Leafs fans, and it appears the misguided, mismanaged ways of the past are returning.

Dave Nonis has used the Leafs' final compliance buyout on Mikhail Grabovski, ridding Toronto of Grabovski's $5.5 million cap hit. The buyout will cost the Leafs $14.33 million in real dollars over eight years, but nothing against the cap.

Nikolai Kulemin's name has popped up in trade rumours this year, with most of the rumour mongers citing his drop in production as the primary reason. He's now become a "change of scenery" candidate and one the Leafs should allegedly be happy to trade.

After scoring 30 goals in 2010-11, Kulemin has scored 11 goals over his next 102 games. That's not even 9 over 82 games. When a player drops that far, it's hard not to wonder what's gone wrong. How can a player go from a career high to a career low so quickly?

Well, Kulemin's 30-goal year was the outlier, one likely to never be repeated. When you combine his career-high 30-goal season and his career-low 7-goal season that followed, it averages out to 18, right in line with 15-16 goals Kulemin scored his first two seasons. He wasn't as good as he was in 2010-11 and he wasn't as bad as he was in 2011-12.

But Kulemin only has four goals this season, which would total 10 over a full 82-game season. So compared to his early career, not even his outlier season, he has been conspicuously missing from the score sheet.

But Kulemin's lack of output is primarily a perceptual issue. Relative to his role, Kulemin is actually producing at a high level.

The Leafs have rocketed up the standings and it is all thanks to a Brian Burke-brand of truculence. At least that was the narrative on Saturday night’s Hockey Night in Canada telecast.

Unfortunately, it isn’t even remotely true.

Matt Frattin is too good for the AHL.

He has 24 goals in 36 career AHL games, which includes 10 he scored in 13 playoff games.

With a disappointing 6-4-0-1 start and a scant 33 goals forward, the Toronto Marlies will be happy to add the winger to their lineup when he returns from injury, which could be as early as Friday.

Frattin was one of the brighter lights on a strong Marlies team last season, which gave Leafs Nation hope that he would soon help the Maple Leafs.

While Frattin has shown an ability to score at the AHL level, he was used primarily in a bottom six role with the big club, minus a few games played alongside Mikhail Grabovski after Randy Carlyle took over. 

Physically, Frattin has the making on a banging, crashing style forward that would be extremely valuable on the third line. And statistically, he should be able to excel in that role immediately. He scored 8 goals in 56 games, which prorates to about 11 over a full season. That's the amount a good third line winger scores.

But after his goal-scoring barrage in the AHL, perhaps his NHL ceiling is higher than that of a third line player.

The Leafs locked up one of their most important players on Tuesday. Mikhail Grabovski signed a five-year, $27.5 million contract, forgoing unrestricted free agency where he would have been the only real option at centre for many teams. Grabovski and his agent were pushing for six or seven years, which would have likely lowered the cap hit slightly, but the Leafs would not budge from five years.

The initial reaction from most parts—aside from a few, such as CBC's Elliotte Friedman—is that the deal is too much money. Grabovski is now the highest paid forward on the Leafs, $100,000 more than Phil Kessel.

Jonas Gustavsson didn't see his shadow. That means there will be spring hockey in Toronto.

The race for the final few playoff spots is on. The Leafs are battling with a number of teams and have wavered in and out depending on the week. They had a good run in January and are in a position where they just need to keep winning at a reasonable pace, which is a nice change from the last few seasons when a .700 winning percentage was a minimum.

When the Maple Leafs re-signed John-Michael Liles, the prevailing thought was that Mikhail Grabovski was about to become a cap casualty. Liles took less than $4 million to stay in Toronto, putting next year's cap space at slightly over $11 million. The problem was that Keith Aulie, Cody Franson, and Nikolai Kulemin become restricted free agents in line for raises, and Jonas Gustavsson becomes an unrestricted free agent.

Grabovski will likely make close to $5 million, so to keep Grabovski in the fold the Leafs need some creative cap management, especially if they hope to make other improvements to the squad.

Because of the shrinking cap space and Grabovski's soon-to-be free agent status, his name has inevitably popped up in trade rumours. And unless there's some unlikely fantasy scenario where Ryan Getzlaf comes back the other way, in no way does a Grabovski deal help the Leafs.

Honestly, I have been really proud of this MSpaint-job I did sometime last year and I've had no idea when I could actually write a Cliff Fletcher post to use it on. To solve that problem I thought it was about time we start appreciating the wonder that was Cliff Fletcher's second time around in Toronto. He did sign Jeff Finger, which is always good for a few laughs, but that's no reason to consider his Toronto redux anything other than a complete success.

Cross another name off the list of potential free agents in 2012. The Chicago Blackhawks locked up all-purpose forward Patrick Sharp to a five-year contract with an annual cap hit of $5.9 million per season.

The two premier free agents remaining – assuming they make it to July 1st, which is, admittedly, a total unknown – are Alexander Semin and Zach Parise. Both are high scoring wingers who are capable of topping 40 goals a season. Both will also be only 28-years-old by the start of next season. To suggest they will be highly sought after is an understatement.

After Parise and Semin, the second-tier of forwards consists of Dustin Penner, Ales Hemsky, R.J. Umberger, Brad Boyes, and Mikhail Grabovski – the latter being the only real quality top-6 centre option available.