I kinda agree that Leaf might do some internal moves in 208/9 but not with that Dman group... Marincin, Holl, Rosen may not be NHLers.. And Carrick takes 30% pay cut? Would hope Borgman and Liljegren are nHL ready.

I wonder how the "big 4" would feel about losing Jake Gardiner. A lot of offense runs through him...

A lot of defense gets through him too.

I think Lilegren would be ready for the NHL by this time, so he'll probably play top-4 too.

Ah but compared to his teammates, he is still the best on the team.

(1) I echo your sentiments about Marleau (both of them) and Gardiner. (2) The amount by which you're off on Carrick you're off on Johnsson, so that cancels out. (3) Per palhal (the voice of wisdom), you've got 4 rookies on offense and 3 rookies on defense. That's fine for Ottawa or Arizona, but the Maple Leafs have pretensions to the Stanley Cup finals. Did you look at some potential free agents like Robert Bortuzzo, Christian Folin, Nick Jensen or Neal Pionk?

Just wanted to see what they could do with what they have NOW.

Kapanen & Johnsson are going to have to put together monster plaform years to demand that kind of money.

Reilly, Dermott, and even Zaitsev are better than Gardiner.

At ping pong maybe.
It is literally not even close. The stats show Gardiner has a huge positive impact whereas the other 2 don't. (Dermott doesn't count yet) Everyone sees the bonehead giveaways and think he's terrible but overlook everything else. Rielly and Zaitsev blow coverage nightly, resulting in more goals against, but no one knows what to look for.