A late 1st for an early 2nd in a good draft isn’t enough imo. A later pick from the Ducks maybe they consider it. That said they probably are in semi tank mode & say no.

Fair enough.

Muzzin has a full NTC, what if he decides he wants to stay in Toronto. What incentive does he have to move?

Reasonable to me. I do think keeping Kerfoot is more important than keeping Muzzin - Giordano’s contract allows that to happen.

This is obviously a scenario that he does waive his NTC.

There are no guarantees he will waive it for anybody. Can come up with pros and cons for pretty much every franchise. This is strictly hypothetical if he'd be interested into going back to California.

I do not see Muzzin being traded unless an asset is coming back .Look at what is left 2 almost rookies Holl a 39 year old .Add to the fact the Leafs have already paid half of his salary. .I do see him moved to clear cap for a larger deal then I could see giving up an asset. McD 33 yrs old 6.75 x4 was traded by Tampa for an asset. That was a cap dump .Reese for 1 m is wishful thinking 1.5 more likely Sandin will want Boqvist numbers 2.6 m if he is going to sign for 3 years .We have several players on the bubble who can play in Kerfoot's spot Robertson Holmberg come to mind Defense/Goal is still the teams weak spot .

Difference is that Tampa got a deal with a team that wanted McDonagh. Nashville clearly think they were that defenseman piece away from seriously contending. Extending Forsberg for 8 years clearly proves that.

In this scenario, the Leafs haven't yet found another contender that is willing to move assets for Muzzin. The Leafs have to move someone as they only can field a 20 man roster with Sandin unsigned. Leafs have no leverage now either which takes away their bargaining power. Although Muzzin isn't a negative value asset, they will have to do something to make this deal worthwhile for the Ducks. They could easily add his cap hit from players in FA without giving up assets. This is why the trade is setup like it is.

Obviously other combinations of player trades could take place. Kerfoot + Holl is a very viable package deal the Leafs could make to a team or just trade them separately.

As for ZAR, have seen a bunch of FA's take well below what I expected them to take. $1M or $1.5M, doesn't really matter. If you noticed, I left some cap maneuverability.

I took the Boqvist contract into consideration here. He has had a more productive NHL career so far in comparison to Sandin. That is why I gave Sandin $2.3M rather than $2.6M like Boqvist.

Holmberg could use some seasoning in the AHL while Robertson would have to earn a spot in camp. Very unfortunate situation for him, but the Leafs cant afford to gamble on him being a productive member in the top 6 and trade a versatile Swiss army knife like Kerfoot away without knowing for certain that Robertson is ready.

I mean, McDonagh got back Philippe Myers (a guy who's washed out of Philadelphia and Nashville already, to the point where the Preds just let him play on Toronto's AHL team just to at least let him get some ice time somewhere) and Grant Mismash - a 23 year old who put up 12 points in 57 AHL games this year (as a forward, in case you were wondering). Myers' cap hit is $2.55M, too, so Tampa only got back about $4M against this year's cap - probably meaning that Toronto has to take back a bad contract in the $1.5Mish range and might get a C tier prospect in return.

Here we are talking about flipping a first on a low cost contract Muzzin is owed 3m average for 2 years plus ducks needs the cap hit and has no roster players

It's the Boston pick, not the Anaheim pick. OP was careful about that.