I'm not sure I understand where you are coming from in acquiring Ekblad. The fact you have what would seem like Dermott drafted by Seattle rather than Holl or Kerfoot would suggest Holl had another good year and Toronto protected him as a 4th defenseman. Trading a future asset of need and a 90 point winger for a roster spot of little need at the moment doesn't make a lot of sense. Ignoring that however, lets see if we can't fill this roster out a bit.

The first obvious adds would be guys already signed, Pierre Engvall as a 4th line PK specialist and Joey Anderson finally makes his way to a full time NHL job. Everyone expects Hyman to re-sign, lets give him a raise. 20 goal, 40 point scoring winger, not unreasonable to expect something similar to what Killorn got in Tampa for similar production as a similar age. $4,450,000 for 5 years, lets him sign 1 more deal after its done. Another depth winger would be Igor Korshkov who is doing very well in the KHL this season. Big guy, some skill, a decent 3rd-4th line option. He'll need a new deal but without any real time in the NHL it will be somewhere sub 1 mil aav on a short term. Adam Brooks is another guy playing for the Marlies who looked very good and ready to play in the NHL with his 7 games in the 19-20 season. I don't think he's going to make it through waivers in 20-21 but we're making a lot of assumptions here so lets just throw him in on the 4th line too.

That bring us to free agents and our true need on here of a goalie. Really this depends on your opinion of what Jack Campbell is. I'm going to start by saying he's not a starter. Could he be a tandem goalie though? At 26 with only around 60 starts, its hard to make a judgement on this without having seen the 20-21 season. I'm a Toronto fan I'm going to say he shows us he's capable of starting 30-40 games in a season. Means we go shopping for a partner, not a starter, and there are a lot of options with a good amount of cap room to use. You can choose from re-signing Andersen, Binnington, Raanta, Reimer, Grubauer, Bernier (people are going to guffaw at Bernier but he's actually done pretty well with what he's given in Detroit), Rittich, Ullmark, Driedger, and Stolarz. Take your pick and call it around a 5 mil contract at max. Probably more than enough to sign any single one of these guys. I'm going to say Grubauer just because I know it pisses off Avs fans.

With goalie solved, we're looking for depth options. If Dubas has shown one thing, it's that he's great at signing depth from the budget bin and Russia. I'm sure he can handle skater 21-23 just fine with around $2,979,467 in cap space.

That would leave my roster as:

Hyman - Matthews - Nylander
Robertson - Tavares - Mikheyev
Anderson - Kerfoot - Tippett
Engvall - Brooks - Korshkov

Rielly - Ekblad
Muzzin - Brodie
Sandin - Holl

Grubauer
Campbell.

Do it after the expansion draft.

Nah.

The point wasn't that Ekblad had to be protected, I assumed Dermott got picked here, it was that it didn't make much sense given the expansion draft. You have to imagine the 3 guys the Leafs might lose right now are Dermott, Holl or Kerfoot in a 4-4-1 protection scheme. They would get to choose who to protect on defense, either Dermott or Holl. Why protect Holl if you are just going to go out and replace his roster spot with a much better Ekblad? It doesn't make sense.

I literally say when the trade occurs. It’s after the expansion draft.

and the trade doesn't make sense given what the Leafs did at the expansion draft in your scenario.

Lol there are zero assumptions about the expansion draft in this ACGM. Let’s move on from that. It is a non factor.

Sure there are even if you didn't mean to make them. You assumed Dermott would be chosen rather than Kerfoot or Holl. That also would assume that Holl was protected as a 4th D given there arn't 7 forwards left who needed protection. Why protect Holl when you are just going to trade big money to replace him?

I did not assume dermott would be chosen.

I did not assume anything.

There is nothing in this ACGM about the expansion draft. Read the description.

You assumed Dermott would be chosen when you left Holl and Kerfoot on the roster. That assumption would mean the Leafs protected Holl which means trading big money for Ekblad wouldn't make any sense. You havn't answered my basic question, why would the Leafs trade big money for Ekblad after just protecting Holl rather than someone else from the expansion draft?

Hey buddy....read. The. Description.

(When you get to the last sentence, maybe you’ll figure out that aside from the trade, I did absolutely nothing to the roster)

You are dodging the basic question, why would the Leafs trade big money for Ekblad after just protecting Holl rather than Dermott from the expansion draft? This trade makes no sense from the Leafs perspective.

Who says they protected holl over dermott?

You did when you had Holl and Kerfoot still on the roster without 7 forwards to protect in a 7-3-1 scheme.

Okay, somehow you haven’t gotten this. I don’t intend to discuss this further, I’m going to explain it one more time.

The ONLY thing done in this ACGM was the trade. See that? So i didn’t trade anyone else. I didn’t sign anyone else. Notice how theres 14 guys on the roster? Notice how theres one freaking goalie?

If you, as i recommended, read the description you would see that the final sentence reads as follows: Very open to suggestions about how to fill out the roster, and I’ll add the players/contracts if I agree that it makes sense.


Do you understand that now? Do you get that? Do you see how I didn’t extend, sign, or trade anyone else? Make sense now. Good. If you think that Holl will get taken by Seattle and Dermott will be re-signed, feel free to recommend that. Glad we sorted that out.

I get it very much. The thing you don't seem to understand is that a series of events would have to unfold for this roster to still be there and that given that series of events, this trade makes no sense from the Leafs perspective.

Your roster is imperfect, fine, but given the imperfect information you've provided trading this package for Ekblad is a bad idea for the Leafs.

So what you could have done is been like, “oh hey, it says in the description that suggestions on how to fill out the roster are welcomed, so here are suggestions as to how to fill out the roster.”

Instead, you chose to be an absolute clown show, and do some who’s on first routine regarding the expansion draft. You have yourself a good day pal.

Go back and look at my first post. I filled the entire roster. You even quoted it though its obvious now you didn't bother reading it before you decided to clown show it for some reason after I said I ignored the fact the trade makes no sense. Can't expect much better from Boston fans.

Why do you keep suggesting they protected holl. They could easily go 7 forwards and leave both holl and dermott exposed. Dermott is the more valuable asset and would likely get picked. The leafs can’t even protect Justin holl anyway since he’s the only defender other than their top 3 that meets the expansion criteria.

There arn't 7 forwards left to protect and Dermott meets the criteria.

Dermott is not under contract after this year. Also if they resign Hyman they would likely protect 7f rather then losing kerfoot. There are many ways that it could turn out, this isn’t a full roster and Justin holl makes no difference to this trade.

Dermott is not under contract but hes still an RFA, who don't need to be, and Hyman isn't re-signed in the above AGM.

“One available player must be a defenseman who is under contract in 2021-22 and played at least 40 NHL games in 2020-21 or 70 games in ’19-20 and ’20-21 combined.“

Idk maybe dermott meets this criteria, it doesn’t specify about eras. But anyway holls presence on this roster is irrelevant. Leafs could resign someone, trade for a forward at the deadline, holl could break out and they might protect him. There’s no reason holl and ekblad couldn’t be on the same team so who is picked in the expansion draft has no effect/minimal effect on the trade anyway.

Holl's presence here would mean he had a 2nd good season next to Muzzin, and protected, which would mean acquiring Ekblad would be a low priority and especially one not worth moving a 90 point winger like Marner for. Thats the point.

I mean sure. I would protect dermott too, I don’t think it’s necessary to criticize the protection of a third pair defender on a hypothetical trade a year before the expansion draft.

Ex. Dermott plays like ****, leafs expose him. Holl plays ok/similar to last year but the leafs defense is still bad, so the they trade for ekblad. Or like I mentioned before, they trade for/sign a forward and protect 7F.