No Soup for Dubas

Team: 2022-23 Toronto Maple Leafs

Initial Creation Date: Jun. 10, 2022

Published: Jun. 10, 2022

Salary Cap Mode: Basic

Toronto needs to figure out their goalie situation. Tons of chatter around John Gibson with people wanting to send out Willie Nylander for him, which seems to be a bit much for a guy who hasn't been very good for the past few years! And rumor has it that there has been very little talk between the Leafs' front office and Jack Campbell's people, so he may be ready to move on as well. What else is there for the Leafs to do?

Let's try and move some bodies and give them *something* in goal that actually works moving forward.

TRADES
-First we gotta clear up a little cap room. Chicago is really the only team that makes sense acquiring Mrazek; throw them a mid-round pick and an interesting prospect for their troubles. **Chicago can ask for more if they want, but this is a decent framework**

-Use the extra 10% cap cushion this summer and carry Justin Holl until you find a team that takes the bait. Might be Dallas if they lose Klingberg and want a decent veteran body back there. It could be another team that sacrificed RD depth to upgrade elsewhere and doesn't like what's left in UFA. I think he gets back a 4th/5th wherever he goes.

-Cam Talbot is unhappy in Minnesota you say? The same Cam Talbot that's put up a .914 SV%, 2.69 GAA, and has 19.2 GSAA in 103 starts over the past 3 seasons (equal/better to Campbell's numbers)? I'm unsure on the framework here, but assuming the Wild bring back MAF they'll need the cap space. Toronto gives them a warm body in Erik Kallgren to be their 3rd goalie, and a near-ready prospect in Mikhail Abramov so they can have some bottom-6 ELC guys. This was the hardest package to try and figure out for me - most of Toronto's roster players are paid too much to fit into Minnesota's cap, or are redundancies (the Wild do not need another defenseman.) I opted for giving them the closest-to-NHL ready guys in Toronto's system; maybe the ceilings aren't that high but I feel like Abramov can come in and play bottom-6 minutes right away and Kallgren can at least hold his own for a handful of starts if necessary. Wild fans - is there something else you'd want here?

SIGNINGS
Keep Lily & Sandin at $1.6M bridge deals, Engvall gets $2M on his bridge. Bring back Colin Blackwell if you can on a $1M deal for a couple seasons.

As far as new faces - Scott Wedgewood is the big one here. He had an alright season this year - .910, 3.14 GAA, 3.3 GSAA playing in front of an awful Arizona defense mostly. He can be a decent 1B for 30-35 games with a good D in front of him, and I think that this is what we have here.

Some more depth signings - Tyler Bozak takes over the Jason Spezza Memorial Homecoming Veteran Contract; Dominik Simon builds back some value on a $1M cap hit to play solid D on RW3, and Dakota Joshua is just a body who can take faceoffs occasionally if Bozak needs a night off.

LINES
Top 6 stays the same. It ain't broke. Don't fix it.
Third line is a shutdown line - Engvall-Kampf-Simon will be pests to any other team's top threats.
4th line is a line to cycle guys in and out of - I think pairing Robertson with two solid dependable vets will help him get the best development for now, but you can also have guys like Alex Steeves or Nick Abruzzese get some time on this line too.

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