Ekblad 21-22

I'm not sure I understand where you are coming from in acquiring Ekblad. The fact you have what would seem like Dermott drafted by Seattle rather than Holl or Kerfoot would suggest Holl had another good year and Toronto protected him as a 4th defenseman. Trading a future asset of need and a 90 point winger for a roster spot of little need at the moment doesn't make a lot of sense. Ignoring that however, lets see if we can't fill this roster out a bit.

The first obvious adds would be guys already signed, Pierre Engvall as a 4th line PK specialist and Joey Anderson finally makes his way to a full time NHL job. Everyone expects Hyman to re-sign, lets give him a raise. 20 goal, 40 point scoring winger, not unreasonable to expect something similar to what Killorn got in Tampa for similar production as a similar age. $4,450,000 for 5 years, lets him sign 1 more deal after its done. Another depth winger would be Igor Korshkov who is doing very well in the KHL this season. Big guy, some skill, a decent 3rd-4th line option. He'll need a new deal but without any real time in the NHL it will be somewhere sub 1 mil aav on a short term. Adam Brooks is another guy playing for the Marlies who looked very good and ready to play in the NHL with his 7 games in the 19-20 season. I don't think he's going to make it through waivers in 20-21 but we're making a lot of assumptions here so lets just throw him in on the 4th line too.

That bring us to free agents and our true need on here of a goalie. Really this depends on your opinion of what Jack Campbell is. I'm going to start by saying he's not a starter. Could he be a tandem goalie though? At 26 with only around 60 starts, its hard to make a judgement on this without having seen the 20-21 season. I'm a Toronto fan I'm going to say he shows us he's capable of starting 30-40 games in a season. Means we go shopping for a partner, not a starter, and there are a lot of options with a good amount of cap room to use. You can choose from re-signing Andersen, Binnington, Raanta, Reimer, Grubauer, Bernier (people are going to guffaw at Bernier but he's actually done pretty well with what he's given in Detroit), Rittich, Ullmark, Driedger, and Stolarz. Take your pick and call it around a 5 mil contract at max. Probably more than enough to sign any single one of these guys. I'm going to say Grubauer just because I know it pisses off Avs fans.

With goalie solved, we're looking for depth options. If Dubas has shown one thing, it's that he's great at signing depth from the budget bin and Russia. I'm sure he can handle skater 21-23 just fine with around $2,979,467 in cap space.

That would leave my roster as:

Hyman - Matthews - Nylander
Robertson - Tavares - Mikheyev
Anderson - Kerfoot - Tippett
Engvall - Brooks - Korshkov

Rielly - Ekblad
Muzzin - Brodie
Sandin - Holl

Grubauer
Campbell.

Do it after the expansion draft.

Nah.

The point wasn't that Ekblad had to be protected, I assumed Dermott got picked here, it was that it didn't make much sense given the expansion draft. You have to imagine the 3 guys the Leafs might lose right now are Dermott, Holl or Kerfoot in a 4-4-1 protection scheme. They would get to choose who to protect on defense, either Dermott or Holl. Why protect Holl if you are just going to go out and replace his roster spot with a much better Ekblad? It doesn't make sense.

I literally say when the trade occurs. It’s after the expansion draft.