Team: 2018-19 Toronto Maple Leafs

Initial Creation Date: Jul. 4, 2018

Published: Jul. 5, 2018

Salary Cap Mode: Basic

Sign and trade Gardiner for Honka. Gives Liljegren another year to incubate in the AHL.

The "Big Three" becomes "The Four Horsemen" and are spread over three deadly lines.

As others have suggested, sign Nylander to a $10m deal for one year, then a more reasonable deal long term. This bit of creativity lowers his cap hit when Matthews and Marner get their extensions.

This means in 2018, "The Four Horsement" have a combined cap hit of $29 million (assuming Matthews and Marner hit bonuses)

In the summer of 2019 Nylander signs an 8 X 6.5 deal having already banked $10 million in salary the year before.

That same summer, Matthews signs an 11X8 deal and Marner signs a 10x8 deal (he gets 10 after being stapled to Tavares and lights up the league).

The Four Horsemen together have a cap hit of 38.5 million. Marleau and Hainsey are gone which frees up over $9 million in cap space, replaced with ELC players. (Liljegren at D and "Who Cares" at LW). Assuming a modest increase in cap space, the team can still comfortably ice a team.

I'm a Hawks fan so forgive me if I flipped the positions on bottom pairing D.