???? Murray's buyout is smaller, and Muzzin on LTIR doesn't affect the cap at all. So a small premium would be all that paid, not what you suggest.

LTIR prevents teams from accruing cap space for deadline adds (Like what the Rangers did), I don't think Toronto is willing to have dead cap on their books and not accrue cap space again. While it's a weaker free agent class, they don't need superstars, they just need complementary pieces, and there's plenty of those available.

The Leafs did make playoff additions last season even with Muzzin on LTIR for almost all the season. But I'm hoping the next Leafs GM doesn't throw away futures in any TDL. Dubas was has left the Leafs prospect base barren, has traded away good picks till 2026. Good riddance to Dubas. If anything I'm hoping the next GM is a seller either this summer (unlikely) but by TDL

I don't think ownership will let that happen, but you never know. The way that organization is running leads me to believe there's a lot more puppetry and strings being pulled behind the scenes than we think.

Maybe, there is a power play. I just can't believe that Leaf owners have hired so many poor GMs....since 2000. Ferguson, Burke, Nonis and Dubas. I'm still not sure what Shanahan's job is. He still lives in New York City.

To me, Shanahan almost seems like the "Translator" who explains to the ownership group why the team needs to spend x money on player y and what player y helps the team achieve. Seems like a really restrictive organizational structure filled with micromanagement.

COL will pass and keep Girard because that doesn’t help them win now.

Gives them cap space, a larger role for Byram to step into, and more importantly, draft capital to draft/trade to better the team.

They aren’t doing a trade to do another trade and they have $20M in cap space already.

With 12 of 23 roster spots filled. $20M to fill 9-10 spots? Good luck!

I could see the Kings doing that.

There is logic to that but it's Toews, not Girard, keeping Byram from a bigger role

That's an average of $2M per player which is pretty good to fill out depth; it's not as big a problem as you think it is

The Avs never run 23 spots they usually run 21. So that’s 9 spots. Byram and Newhook are RFA’s with no arbitration rights so generously giving them $6M between them covers 2 more spots, so that’s 7 spots and $14M. 5 of the remaining spots are bottom 6 and 6th dman so $5-6M covers that leaving $8-9M for 2 spots. ERod probably gets one of those at $3.5M leaving roughly $5M for a Landy replacement. No luck needed. All the big names are signed, both goalies are signed, they live in the world of cup contenders where bottom 6 guys play on $1M deals much like TB. And let’s be honest this FA class is underwhelming in general and they will be looking for at a guy on a prove it deal the most popular option right now seems to be Drouin on a 1year $2M deal.