Thank you for locking up Carrick. He look like he can a Leaf regular, for years. Lupul and Robidas aren't guaranteed to have such long term LTIR for cap space reasons. So the signing of Demers may not be possible but that's OK, there are cheaper short term veterans that might fill the role cheaper than Demers.
Those veterans you mentioned will probably ride out their contracts with Leafs and for the Leafs and their sakes their playing well enough for possible TDL trades.
I'm not sold on Stamkos coming, but you lineup looks close to what we'll see in October.

If the Leafs can't trade for a promising young goalie like Malcolm Subban (BOS) or Calvin Pickard (COL) then I think targeting someone like Carter Hutton on a one year deal is smart. So kudos for giving us that idea to think about as a future possibility since I totally believe that neither goalie we have on the Marlies is ready enough to be an NHL backup next year.

I'm personally not interested in trading for someone like Anaheim's Frederick Anderson. So young (Subban, Pickard) or short-term (Hutton) makes the most sense for now.

Not a fan of the Demers signing. With the expansion coming you're leaving Carrick exposed.

Leafs are most likely going to lose one of Komarov, Soshnikov, Hyman, Brown, or Carrick to the expansion draft.

If we hold off on signing another defensemen until afterwards then we can protect Carrick.

We could also potentially lose Marincin too but he's one of those defensemen that seems to be widely underrated so maybe not.

Zaitsev has been playing in the KHL for a few years so I doubt he plays bottom pairing minutes. That will likely be Carrick's role as he hasn't consistently played at the NHL level in his career yet and will need to brought in along slowly. Pairing him with Marincin or Hunwick on the third pairing would be better for his development.

And for as much as I like Carrick, there is no way he's getting $2.5m without having played a full season of high-level pro hockey. He might get $1m but that depends on how good his agents are. I would guess he probably gets around $950k.

A Stamkos haircut would be lovely but I doubt he would consider doing that, especially with the higher taxes pro athletes have to pay in Toronto compared to most other cities.

Letting the vets ride out their contracts definitely isn't the worst idea but I think it would be beneficial to move one of them out to make room for another Marlie or hopefully Jimmy Vesey.

Good call. Did not consider the expansion draft in this scenario.

Stamkos, Kadri, JVR would have to be protected for sure.

The current projection of the rules state "prospects or players who have played less than two seasons of professional hockey (NHL or AHL) as of the 16/17 campaign would be exempt from selection"

This means that Soshnikov and Hyman, who just played their first seasons as Marlies, would be exempt. Nylander has played in 2 seasons, which means that he may have to be protected.

This is of course if the expansion is announced for June 2017 instead of June 2018.

To be safe, we'll say that it is for June 2017 and Nylander must be protected. We can protect 7F + 3D, or 8 skaters, plus 1 goalie.

Stamkos
JVR
Kadri
Nylander
Gardiner
Rielly
Demers
Carrick

It would actually work out, but risking losing Marincin.