Wrong. It literally was as simple as moving off Kampf, Liljegren and Jarnkrok as those three salaries combined = Lindholm. Again, the player had to want to come here, but to suggest the Leafs didn't have the options or cap space to make it work is inaccurate. Teams can also be 10% over the salary cap in the offseason.
I'm not losing sleep over Lindholm, but 2C should've been a priority last summer and it will be an even bigger hurdle this offseason with less options on the table.
No, it really wasn't.
The Leafs opened the season with $1 of cap space. Within that roster that had 1 of cap space, Calle Jarnkrok counted for absolutely nothing.
That roster had Jarnkrok, Hakanpaa and Mermis on LTIR, and was a "24 man" roster, as Connor Dewar was on normal IR.
If you assume Connor Dewar was healthy, the likely demotion would have been Phillipe Myers (IMO), meaning the Leafs essentially had $775k of cap space, again, with Jarnkrok counting for $0 of that.
Today, if the Leafs want to trade Timothy Liljegren and Calle Jarnkrok, assuming you want the space ot bring Connor Dewar off LTIR, all they could acquire is a $3.775m player, and of course, if that is for a forward, you'd now have a roster which has 14F / 6D.
Add David Kampf to that "package", and you're up to $6.175... EXCEPT, now you've got a 21-man roster with 13 forwards and 6 defencemen. Bring it back to a "normal" 22-man roster with an extra forward and defenceman by bringing back Phillipe Myers, and you're back to $5.4m to spend.
About $2.4m less than what Lindholm eventually signed for.
And that's all before we even talk about the cap gymnastics required to bring Hakanpaa in. (Mermis less relevant, as he seems likely AHL-bound unless there happens to be a need when he's ready to go).