easy

I imagine both marner and Karlsson use their NMCs

And I don't like it for toronto

SJS declines.

Kerfoot and Engvall have no value to SJS as pending UFAs.
They'd get more in return trading EK65, Reimer and Meier individually.

No one is paying for Karlsson's dead weight contract. Meier won't get as much as anyone thinks. His QO makes his next contract dicey at best. Marner is the best player by a wide margin, this isn't a good trade for them both long term and short term

EK65 is still an elite offensive defenseman
https://twitter.com/JFreshHockey/status/1589013836073684992?s=20&t=FwrsbZ6s7iGxU3kd7SQYxQ

Maybe overpaid by 1-2mil? But far far from a dead contract.

Looking at Marner/ Meier, no doubt Marner is more valuable at the surface, but you are missing the fact that Marner would be 11mil for 2.5 seasons versus Meier at only 3mil with RFA rights. Meiers 10milQO doesn't necessarily mean he must be signed to that contract amount either.

Why wouldn't he demand 10 as a starting point. Even if he goes under that, it won't be much so let's say an extension is 9.5 million a year for 8 years. That's 20 million in Meier and Karlsson, or less for Rielly and Marner. And neither are declining players like Karlsson is. Without a doubt this makes TO worse and handcuffs them down the road