With waivers done, cuts to the Taxi Squad/AHL sorted out, we have our opening night roster:

Forwards

Auston Matthews
John Tavares
Mitch Marner
William Nylander
Alexander Kerfoot
Zach Hyman
Ilya Mikheyev
Wayne Simmonds
Jimmy Vesey
Jason Spezza
Joe Thornton
Alex Barabanov

Defence

Jake Muzzin
Morgan Rielly
TJ Brodie
Justin Holl
Zach Bogosian
Travis Dermott

Goalies

Frederik Andersen
Jack Campbell
Aaron Dell

There are no waivers-exempt defenders or goalies on this roster, and only one forward, Alex Barabanov, who can be moved to the Taxi Squad without having to clear. This roster has cap space of $566,509*.

The Taxi Squad is made up of the following, as reported by CapFriendly:

The cost of the Dell gambit by Kyle Dubas is a loss of flexibility in the short term. There are 18 skaters, so they must play every game, and no one is available to fill in for a minor injury. One sort of change can be made, however; Barabanov can be swapped out for a defender, if the team wants to run 11 forwards and seven defenders. He can also be shunted to the squad on off days to accrue cap space.

However, the most minor injury requires the team to play with only 17 skaters. Players who are eligible for LTIR will free up the roster and cap space to add a player, but regular IR only frees a roster slot, and the Leafs don’t have the cap space to call anyone else up. LTIR is only an option for legitimate long-term absences of at least 24 days and 10 games played.

Teams can request “non-roster” status for any player deemed unfit to play by the COVID-19 protocols. In that instance, the player has to come back on the roster the moment they are declared fit, and are not subject to the minimum time away IR requires. This is most likely to be used for players who were close contacts and need to wait out testing time periods in isolation. Non-roster players count against the salary cap, so this doesn’t help the Maple Leafs particularly. Players who test positive for COVID-19 can be immediately placed on LTIR, but they must remain there for the 10 games and 24 days.

These new pandemic problems aside, the main difficulty for teams running short rosters is going to be good old-fashioned injuries and short-term illnesses.

The Dell Gambit could quickly become a Dell Dilemma. It’s awkward to carry three goalies when you aren’t cap crunched to the extent the Leafs are. It’s bordering on impossible to do it long-term with their situation.

There’s nothing about a Taxi Squad that makes this easier. Those players count against the cap if they’re called up to play, and their only value is proximity on the road.

It’s not all that likely that the long-term plan is to run with this roster as is. Once all the teams are settled with their third goalie selected and waived to their own squad, with their backup secure in his job, the Leafs can put Dell through waivers.

You never know what fate will bring you, though. Last year the Leafs were expecting to run a tight roster, to have to use the arcane emergency condition call-up rules and to potentially play shorthanded some of the time. Instead, they spent the entire season with someone on LTIR and unfortunately had space for callups all season long. Counting on that to happen again is hardly how you run a hockey team, however.

We know who is going to start tonight’s game. And then there are 55 more. So how many games will Dell start this year on the Leafs?

How many games will Aaron Dell start for the Leafs

None, he’s just a backup backup.452
Less than 10, but not zero.722
Less than 20, but more than 10.27

* UPDATE: CapFriendly is reporting that Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner have a new, higher AAV because of the CBA change of minimum salary:

This makes the current Leafs cap space $550,259

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