The main problem facing the Toronto Maple Leafs is that if they protect the standard seven forwards, three defenseman, one goalie, they are probably going to lose a young player that they’d rather keep.
I wrote about this in detail here, but the short version is that on D and G, they likely protect Andersen, Gardiner, Reilly, and Carrick. That leaves seven forwards: Brown, Kadri, JVR, Komarov, Leipsic, Leivo and Bozak are the commonly suggested protections, which leaves Martin Marincin, Matt Martin, Seth Giffith and Kerby Rychel exposed.
In my article, I suggested exposing Bozak because a) he’d get picked for sure and allow you to keep all the young, cost-controlled players and b) you know what you’re losing in Bozak, whereas all the other players may have untapped potential.