For the most part, I completely agree with you. While I slightly disagree about the offseason we had, I do think it is pretty high on the list of priorities to add a scoring forward. We have a lot of internal options for that role, with Robertson and Knies kind of headlining that, but I don't love the idea of injecting two young players into the top 6 and hoping that pans out. If the Leafs do play it safe and opt for a more sure solution, then I would love to see Garland as a target. Personally, I was actually a huge fan of the moves made by the Leafs this offseason. On paper, this team is absolutely fantastic and took a clear step up from last year, although we did lose a slight bit of depth scoring (granted our depth did next to nothing in the playoffs last year). The roster is extremely deep, with a logjam at both defense and offense with a surplus of NHL capable players ready to step in.
The subtractions from last year create negligible change. I think a lot of people kind of overstate the impact of losing some guys from last year, particularly Campbell and Mikheyev. Both of them were (unsurprisingly) overpaid on the open market. The two former Leafs currently sit at a combined cap hit of 9.75 million dollars for the next 4 years at the least. Think about it this way: Would you rather have Jack Campbell (5 mil), Ilya Mikheyev (4.75 mil), and Ondrej Kase (1.5 mil) at a combined 11.25 mil, or Mitch Marner at 10.9 mil? The amount of money those guys got is absurd. Jack Campbell, bless his soul, is a fantastic guy and a player that I am a huge fan of. He was super fun to watch, however, he wasn't always sound in that net. The absolutely disastrous 10 - 7 win over Detroit comes to mind, where Jack looked genuinely awful. He made a lot of huge saves, but would very often let in routine shots and terrible goals. I really can't complain about Murray. Yes, Ottawa wanted to move him, but they were also in a unique position where a divisional rival in Toronto actively sought out a player of theirs, so they really squeezed us. The goalie market this year was super tight, and we wound up getting a superb goalie for literally nothing. Samsonov was also a slam dunk, he's signed to fairly cheap and has so much potential it's not even funny. Other notable losses like Mikheyev and Kase are kind of whatever. Jarnkrok and ZAR provide more than enough defensive coverage to make up from what we lost with Mikheyev, while also bringing in some much needed certainty that was lost with Kase and his rocky health record. The other losses like Lyubushkin, Blackwell, Mrazek, and Spezza are just whatever. Getting rid of Mrazek was the right move, and Im glad we did it. I was not a fan of Lyubushkin at all. It was nice to get him in exchange for Nick Ritchie, but he looked down right horrible most of the time. Blackwell was nice, but his skillset has been 100% replaced already in the form of ZAR and NAK, so again it's just whatever. Spezza retiring sucks, but it was time to usher in a new identity for the fourth line anyways, and I dont think Spezza wouldve been the right guy to center the fourth line we truly need.
I think a lot of Leafs fans (including myself) have gotten too caught up in the "what if" rhetoric. Sure, guys like Ninoreider and Bjorkstrand were available, but did they want to come to Toronto? Nino was a free agent, so he was more or less in complete control of where he landed. Even if the Leafs did offer him a deal, theres no guarantee he has interest in playing here. Same can be said with Bjorkstrand who has a full NTC. Would they have been nice? For sure, but not every player can be a Leaf, so really, who cares? Free Agents are never a sure thing and should definitely not be the medium to facilitate any grand change in your roster. Look at Tavares, who is a fantastic player for us and has for the most part been a really great add. He still makes way more than he's worth simply because there was that competition on the open market. Sure, he took less to come to Toronto, but his cap hit is still ginormous. Bjorkstrand was a personal favourite target for the Leafs, but again, that NTC made all the difference, and Seattle is also in a different conference. There is so much unpredictability with player movement that I have really just given up on being disappoint that the Leafs didnt prioritize a certain player, because chances are we did and it just didn't work out. This is the case with Kase, who was offered an identical contracts from Toronto and Carolina, yet chose Carolina. By thinking "We missed out on ___", or "We could've had ____" shifts too much focus onto the "what if", and downplays the genuinely good offseason we just had. At the end of the day, it's a business and there are so many factors at play that its best to just focus on what we have.
All of that aside, I am genuinely stoked about the start of this season. I am a huge believer in our goalies, and even if they do suck, they just need to be better than last year. I think our forward core got significantly better depth wise, especially considering we still have Robertson as an option in the near future and Knies as another option a little further down the stretch if needed. There are a lot of young guys vying to come up and make an impact as well, which is something that really excites me considering it feels like forever since thats been the case. Our defense is also vastly improved from last year, as despite it being made up of more or less the same guys, we've got Gio, Sandin, and Liljegren all signed for a combined 3.6 mil, which is just insanely good value. I completely agree with all your points, but I think we'll do better than you anticipate. Granted this is the Toronto Maple Leafs, so anything can happen. I look forward to coming back to this throughout the season and reading over the changing mindsets as the seasons go on. It'll be fun to come back and laugh at my inevitably bad takes that age like milk. We still see. Go Leafs!
(Also FWIW, you forgot Kampf on the organizational depth chart)