from Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun,

- So, if you had $5.5 million to spend, and you’re playing the home version of the general manager game so many of us play, who is the better buy, Phillip Danault or Zach Hyman? … For salary cap reasons, the Leafs need to lose Alex Kerfoot in the expansion draft. That drops $3.5 million their cap. That would give them about $12 million to spend in the off-season on six players. If they lose Travis Dermott, for example, then they have just $10 million to spend, barring trades of any kind.

- Someone is going to overpay for Barclay Goodrow and Blake Coleman in free agency, unless Tampa re-signs one of them. They are good, solid, third-line wingers, playing with an exceptional third-line centre in Yanni Gourde. Will they be difference-makers without Gourde? Remains to be seen.

- There are three months until the NHL season begins, which gives Rogers Sportsnet three months to figure out what it hasn’t figured out in six seasons — how to do Hockey Night In Canada properly. The sell-out show opening for the night the Stanley Cup was won, with LeBron James and company pumping his Space Jam movie, bordered on embarrassing.

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