I think it’s fair to say no one expected the Toronto Maple Leafs’ first day roster to look like this.

No Joseph Woll or James Reimer in goal. No Dennis Hildeby, even.

No Easton Cowan, despite plenty of praise from the coach. David Kämpf with the Marlies, but fellow on-the-outs players Nick Robertson and Calle Järnkrok in decent positions as part of the current 12 starting forwards.

And two final-day waiver claims to round it all out.

Somehow along the way, they went from one of the NHL teams with plenty of financial flexibility to just $19,1721 to spend under the $95.5 million salary cap. Enough for general manager Brad Treliving to buy a nice used Honda Accord, if he wants.

A lot happened in a short window, so let’s unpack it a bit here and explain how things could unfold from here, as the Leafs prepare to host the Montreal Canadiens in their season opener Wednesday night in Toronto.

What’s going on in goal?

The Leafs wisely stayed on the hunt for more options in net throughout training camp and ultimately settled on making a waiver claim on the final day, nabbing 26-year-old Cayden Primeau from the Carolina Hurricanes, where he was set to be their third-stringer.

Primeau can’t go down to the Marlies without clearing waivers, and Hildeby can, which means it’ll very likely be Primeau getting the start when Toronto has its first back-to-back early next week. (We’re guessing he gets the struggling Nashville Predators a week from today.)

I know some fans were looking forward to seeing the Hildebeast unleashed, but he’s a much less experienced goalie than Primeau, and with the length of Woll’s absence unclear, it makes sense to take a flier on another young goalie, given Anthony Stolarz can’t play 55-plus games this year.

Primeau makes $775,000, the league minimum, which is a good thing given Woll isn’t eligible for long-term injured reserve right now while on a personal leave. That means his salary counts against the cap, which is part of why things are getting tighter than expected for Toronto already.

This is the last year Hildeby will be waiver exempt, so I suspect the Leafs will take advantage of that status and yo-yo him back and forth here a bit when they want to give him a chance. They can open up enough cap room to have three goalies around at times if they want to; if he starts well in the AHL, that could very well make sense.

What about on defence?

I’m not going to spend much time on the blue line, as everything unfolded there basically as planned. The Leafs were able to sneak everyone through waivers — Henry Thrun, Dakota Mermis, William Villeneuve and Matt Benning — so there’s depth there if they ever need it. (Although you hope for their sake the 11th D isn’t getting NHL minutes this season.)

The only other thing I’ll note about the defence: Marshall Rifai hurt his wrist in preseason and needed surgery, so he’ll be out awhile. Because he’s on a one-way contract, they can’t send him down while hurt, so he’s also counting against the cap right now.

He’s expected to end up on long-term injured reserve Tuesday, which will open up a whopping $755,000 in room over the cap to make further moves.

So for the opener, the back end will be Jake McCabe with Chris Tanev, Morgan Rielly with Brandon Carlo, and Oliver Ekman-Larsson with Simon Benoit. And Philippe Myers munching popcorn in the press box as the seventh D.

What’s happening up front?

Quite a lot.

Scott Laughton is week to week after blocking a shot in preseason, so he’s another player who can’t play whose contract ($1.5 million cap hit) is counting against the cap. But at this point, the Leafs don’t expect him to be out for a month, so they’re not putting him on LTIR to open up more cap room. (And they don’t particularly need extra space at the moment anyway.)

Without Laughton at 4C, coach Craig Berube scrambled his lines up to have them like so at Monday’s practice:

Matthew Knies – Auston Matthews – Matias Maccelli
Bobby McMann – John Tavares – William Nylander
Steven Lorentz – Nicolas Roy – Calle Järnkrok
Dakota Joshua – Max Domi – Nick Robertson

For the extra forward, the Leafs have two at the moment: Sammy Blais, whom they claimed off waivers from the Montreal Canadiens, and youngster Jacob Quillan, who is fortunate to get a day of NHL pay simply because his cap hit is slightly higher ($1,500) than Cowan’s. More on that in a second.

I wouldn’t necessarily assume the lines above are going to be what Berube goes with against the Canadiens on Wednesday. The Leafs could still recall Cowan and put him in over Järnkrok or Robertson. Or they could decide to play Blais as part of an energy line, which was how Berube deployed him when they were together in St. Louis.

Why are the Leafs so close to the salary cap?

OK, so why the heck is Quillan on the team?

Well, once LTIR came into play for the Leafs — with Woll, Laughton and Rifai all unavailable — the closer they could get to the cap before using LTIR, the better. Quillan gets the Leafs $1,500 closer to the ceiling, which frees up that much more room while they’re in LTIR, so that’s what they did. He’ll be on the team only for a day, financially speaking, to get that cap boost.

With Rifai on LTIR and Quillan sent down, the roster and cap situation will look like so.

So that leaves them with one roster spot under the 23-man limit and more than enough room to fit in Cowan’s $873,500 salary if they so choose.

Once Laughton gets healthy, however, the Leafs would have to make a move, either simply sending Cowan down, placing Blais back on waivers or finding a new home for Järnkrok or Robertson. For now, they can have at least a couple of weeks with a roster configuration like this.

Once Woll returns, they could return Primeau and Blais to waivers in addition to sending Cowan down and open up all that cap space, too, which would give them close to $2.5 million that can accrue and grow two or three times that amount before the trade deadline in March. Also dumping Järnkrok ($2.1 million), Robertson ($1.8 million) or Kämpf (who is still counting $1.25 million against the cap even in the minors) would likely be a factor to consider to make a substantial addition later in the year.

So they do still have flexibility there, when they need it later on. But for now, it’s fairly tight, so tight that it might even make sense to shuttle Cowan back and forth to the Marlies to create more space early on. (The Leafs will save roughly $4,500 for every day he isn’t on the roster.)

Are the Leafs done making moves?

I don’t think so, no. Obviously, Quillan isn’t staying, but my understanding from talking to sources is Treliving continues to consider his options in terms of bringing in another forward. That could be a trade, another waiver claim or even a free-agent signing.

Berube clearly isn’t in love with some of his depth options, which has resulted in Kämpf’s being sent to the AHL for the first time since he was a rookie way back in 2017-2018. Others could be tossed overboard if the coach doesn’t like what he sees in these first few weeks without Laughton in the mix.

And he has an old favorite now, in Blais, and a new one, in Cowan, to challenge some of the incumbents with bigger contracts for minutes. So consider the first 10 games an extended tryout for some of these players as the Leafs mix and match and see what works with a different look than years past.

Should be interesting to watch it unfold in the early going.