Temporarily Lou Lam

I'd say too much for Bennett, just my opinion though.

There is no way that the Leafs would trade JVR and Kapanen for Bennett who is still a bit of an unproven commodity on Calgary.

I would also not trade Carrick for Millar as I still think Carrick has more upside.

Think they might do Maata deal to get another quality younger dman who has played on 2 cup teams in Pittsburg as Bozak will be UFA at end of season.

could happen

CGY is good now, could use JVR this year, but they'd have to make salary room. TOR adds a young C/LW to go with their core

PIT gets Bozak to replace Bonino, reunite with Phil on the 3rd line there. TOR gets an NHL top 4 D.

Not sure about the Vegas trade as there isn't a clear upside for them. They want to sell for picks if anything, and are happy to sift through their pieces for deadline trade bait if not chemistry to build a team with.

I agree with your points Goldie but if you were TO would you actually give up Kapanen as well?

Can't say that I would, but Bennett was a #4 overall who's only 2-3 seasons in. There's nothing wrong with him, so CGY would want youth they know can play as well.
Maybe CGY adds one of their depth D, they have an excess of RHD. Maybe CGY adds a draft pick in the 3-5th range. The deal has to get bigger, because 1 for 1 won't work.

I expect the Leafs will have some trouble with waivers this year -- I've posted about Horton and Lupul needing to fit on the NHL roster at season's start in order to apply for LTIR, which only runs during the regular season -- and trading JVR before that happens could save 1 or more depth players from being claimed.

JVR is ideal trade bait, but the challenge is to find a trading partner in the summer now that all the big UFAs have contracts. If the Leafs management were better prepared, nothing would be stopping them from adding UFA D. Until now, I thought they had made a lot of savvy moves and hadn't made one misstep... until they signed Marleau (great player but there are just too many consequences), and have done nothing for their D which without major injuries was solely responsible for #22 in goals against.

I think they gambled and the deal(s) they were counting on fell through. Maybe there's one deal that's still on the table but they will have to lower their price because they cornered themselves and the other side knows it.

That bit between training camp and the regular season is going to be their most stressful time yet.
They could trade Lupul's insured contract, but probably not Horton's, to a team that has no plans for the cap space in exchange for a late draft pick. That brings them to $1.32 million of cap space, add in papering Matthews/Nylander/Marner and there's $4 million in cap space to sign Brown without exposing guys to waiver claims (other than Rychel it seems, but if he makes the team then someone else is expendable)

But doing all this does not get them a top 4 D. Many were hoping for Markov or Franson, but there's absolutely no room for now. Leafs would have the LTIR space to sign a UFA once the season began, but what are the odds anyone you want will hold off based on a promise to sign them later. I'd rather have a contract, get a place to live, meet everyone during training camp and make the choice of destination while there's still 3 or 4 alternatives if there's any trouble making it official.

The disaster is if they do need to send guys across the waiver wire to make cap space, they'll be depth guys. Depth guys have small cap hits, so it takes a lot of them to make a little space. Then if any get claimed, you are forced to send more guys across the waiver wire to replace them. They'll have internal judgment on who is expendable, but the pain is exponential so I can't imagine wanting to risk more than a couple.