Move Brown, and Kapanen, roll dice on young defence and evaluate. The team will be a playoff team so just wait and see. Maybe trade Johnsson as well if need be. Small moves will have a much greater long term benefit to the Leafs. Those are all moves that can be made where the Leafs won't be giving away better assets in losing trades.

If Nylander is not a top 6 forward, then why trade for him at his cap hit? He's still 23 and has two seasons of 61 points. Seems more likely this was an off year due to the holdout. I think he's worth more than Murphy & Kahun.

Anyway, I don't think Dubas is going to trade a player he just signed to a long term contract, certainly not for less than a top prospect that's near NHL ready. I can't see Dubas going to the owner and fan base and saying, "Yep, I held the hard line in the prolonged holdout, got it done last minute, happy with the deal, and now I'm going to trade him for less than I could have received last off-season because of the cap issues I should have seen coming..."

Didn't say Nylander isn't a top 6 forward, clearly I have him on the 2nd line, but he's a supporting cast member not going to carry his own line as evident this past season. A high end defensive 1st line defensive player (Boqvist and Jokiharju) are not worth Nylander.

Murphy/Kahun would be about $2M cap saving. To save $2M in cap space, Dubas will need to go to his owner & fan base & tell them that he's trading Nylander 6-7 months after a prolonged holdout to sign him to a long term contract at the cap number he wanted? I don't see how that's worth it to him. He'd be shredded by the media and probably fired.

If I'm Dubas, and Bowman is calling me, no way I'm trading Nylander for less than a top prospect. Dogging him to me by convincing me he's a supporting cast player and coming off a bad season I should sell low on him isn't going to work.

Good luck, plenty of UFA's that people don't need to give up more and take a risk on Nylander. Hawks don't have cap problems.