Two years is a long time. If Stamkos wants to come to Toronto, the cap space can and will be made available to fit him in.
Quickly review our roster and cap allocation from 2 years ago to now and it's substantially different. Then review two years prior to that and then 2 years prior to that. 2 years is a long time to make roster moves.
With the exception of Clarkson every contract we have could be traded for assets in return.
Guys like Holland, Nylander, Finn, Percy, Granberg, Reilly, Gardiner will take on more prominent roles. Nylander in particular could make a guy like Lupul disposable similar to how Kadri took the place of Grabo. Holland might eventually take the spot of someone like Bozak or at the very least the 3rd line center role.
What Toronto needs more then anything at this point is for Nylander to pan out well following the pick by getting another blue chipper at the top of the 15 draft.
Toronto has a lot of good pieces but much like when LA, St. Louis, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Colorado had some nice pieces the best thing that happened to those organizations was sucking for just that 1 extra year and grabbing another blue chipper like Staal, Kane, Schenn, Mackinnon, Pietrangelo.
Making the playoff last year seemed like a good thing but following up the Rielly pick with any of the top 8 pick in the 13 draft like Mackinnon, Barkov, Drouin, Jones, Lindholm, Monahan, Nurse, Ristolainen instead of Gauthier would have this organization in a much better place today.