I have no idea what may end up happening. I have a sneaking suspicion it involves Marleau. It may not.
My point really is, that the Leafs are not really THAT far off in terms fitting everyone in. It's not going to take as much as you might think to make it all work. If someone legit gets injured, it may in fact just work out on it's own. But we'll see. when you actually look at the numbers, it's not as bad as some are painting it.
And I don't want to distract from that point, but even if they don't, and lose Gardiner, the year after that, with Marleau off the books, another year of cap increases, they'll actually be in a position to spend again. As in, they should have enough room to grab a pretty good dman. The Leafs have a LOT of good years ahead of them.