It will going to be more difficult to get a ride to Zaitsev... Kesler will be LTIR and paid by insurance, not the team.... Remove the 3rd and add a 2nd from TML!!!
The other trade, I think you overvalue TML players a lot!!!!

Still over the cap

For Kesler, Insurance will cover up to 80$ of the contract which leaves 1375000$ to be paid. But the hip problem is pre-existing so it may not be covered by the insurance in which case, the ducks would be on the hook for all of it. which they cant afford to pay and the leafs are the only team that can pay that much to a player not playing. Any team willing to eat that much should actually get more than dumping one bad contract, really but i figured that was the best we could do if there was a bidding market.

as for minny.

Spurgeon has one year left. I think if you look at it as Liljegren for Spurgeon and nylander and the rest for Dumba it would be close especially if you wait till after nylanders bonus money is paid by TO.

not when including LTIR

why is literally half of all leaf fans trading Nylander, in possibly a year that contract could look like a Kadri deal (a sweetheart deal).

Minny doesn't contemplate that deal.

Also if the cap rises to 93 million next year, then sure maybe this team is doable.

Besides the fact that Minny never does that trade... What do you do when Kesler comes back in 2020/21, and you can't trade him because he's an old player on a huge contract who's taken a season off?

Minny would be crazy to do the trade, but, if they feel they need a retool, its a start.

if kesler comes back it would suck but you would have to ditch spurgeon for Sandin and trade Kadri away and make kesler your third line center. At this point too marleau is off the books and the cap goes up a bit

as for the CAP issue

The Training-Camp Equation
The training camp equation can be used on the last day of training camp in preparation for the first day of the season:
ACSL = Team cap hit - LTIR player’s cap hit

Example: The 2017-18 upper limit is $75M, on the last day of the off-season a team has a projected cap hit of $78M and places a player with an AAV of $3.5M on LTIR:
Team cap hit = $78M
Player’s cap hit = $3.5M
ACSL = $78M - $3.5M = $74.5M
To accrue cap space while the team continues to use LTIR, they would need to trade players to get below a projected cap hit value of $74.5M.

For this roster
The 2019-20 upper limit is $83M, on the last day of the off-season the team has a projected cap hit of $92,704,833 and places a Horten and Kesler on LTIR:
Team cap hit = $92,704,833
Player’s cap hit = $121750000
ACSL = 92704833-121750000 = $80,529,833