One of the veteran Maple Leafs had a question the other day, and it’s not one I get often in the dressing room, I’ll confess.

But it happens to be the question everyone around this group is anxious to know.

“So what do you think of our team this year?” he asked. “How’s it look?”

Well… here goes.

The Leafs made their big cuts on Monday, leaving only one decision — Andreas Borgman or Calle Rosen on the third D pair — prior to their season opener in Winnipeg. There were no huge surprises; this was more or less the roster we expected, save for Travis Dermott or Roman Polak potentially making the blueline and Eric Fehr possibly hitting waivers.

Toronto is expected to be able to place Joffrey Lupul on long-term injured reserve after a ruling from the league, something that could be announced as early as Tuesday.

With that in mind, here’s what the Leafs opening-day roster will look like and their resulting cap situation (via our friends at capfriendly.com):

That 23-man roster puts the Leafs at a roughly $70.2-million cap hit with $4.8-million to spend thanks to the Lupul LTIR allowance. That space will not increase over the duration of the season, so what you see is what you get.

There are also $5.4-million in potential bonuses for the kids, bonuses that will be carried over in their entirety to the 2018-19 cap, if attained.

There is a not a ton that’s different from last year on this roster. There are only four new players, and several of the line combinations and D pairs are intact. It’s an unusual level of continuity in the NHL’s cap era.

It’s also unlikely to ever happen again for this group of players, given all the pending free agents and big contracts yet to be signed.

What’s changed, of note:

–Patty Marleau instead of Connor Brown on the shutdown line

–Dominic Moore instead of Brian Boyle at fourth-line centre, with Brown in place of Kasperi Kapanen on his RW

–Ron Hainsey in the top four on D instead of Connor Carrick

–Borgman (or Rosen) with Carrick on the third pair instead of Matt Hunwick and Polak

What’s also changed is something vital beyond the 23-man roster. Adding Borgman and Rosen on D, Miro Aaltonen at centre and giving the Marlies kids another year of development time has earned this organization considerable depth over a year ago.

You look at some of the players that played for the Leafs last season, filling in around the cracks, and that’s not going to happen again. Ben Smith isn’t getting 416 minutes. There’ll be no waiver claims, no Marchenkos or Griffiths getting a test drive.

If this team runs into injuries — and chances are they will, far more than a year ago — they have options. Up front, that could be Aaltonen or Kapanen or Andreas Johnsson etc. On D, the supporting cast is far better — not just from No. 4 through 6 but seven to 10, too.

Just wait’ll we get our Hainsey on you. Photo by Richard A. Whittaker/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

The franchise will be far better equipped to handle adversity, either health-wise or in terms of poor play. If players go down or don’t perform, they’ll be pushed by others, from the press box and the Marlies.

This is easily the deepest the Leafs have been in the decade I’ve covered the team.

So when pundits talk about how they’ll face more adversity on the injury front than last season, they have a point. But it also won’t hurt them nearly as much as it would have in the past.

The other thing I see in this roster is even more offence. How many other teams have a 20-goal winger from last season on their fourth line?

My guess is zero.

In Dom Luszczyszyn’s season preview, he had the Leafs with the fourth best cast of forwards in the NHL (debatably trailing Pittsburgh, Boston and Dallas), the 24th best blueline and the 12th best goaltending tandem.

He also had them finishing 12th overall.

That’s all reasonable, and it won’t surprise me if that’s where they finish. My prediction, however, is they’ll jump up to about 100 points — into the NHL’s top 10 — and threaten the Atlantic Division title.

If you look around the East, it’s awfully hard to pick out a favourite beyond maybe the Penguins, who took some real hits in the depth department and have played a ton of hockey the last two years.

I’ve read a lot of season previews picking a team like Tampa Bay as a Cup favourite, and they’ve got a couple kids set to play big minutes on their blueline.

There are few sure things in the Atlantic, the East and even the league right now. Every team has holes. To be a contender, you simply need to be among the contenders, and there’s a very strong argument these Leafs are. Especially if we can read into what’s gone on in training camp and pre-season the past two weeks.

What you see being around the Leafs these days is a focused, driven team. Auston Matthews, without a doubt, is about to take another step. William Nylander is going to, too.

If they can get the good version of Frederik Andersen behind them, the one who was the sixth best starter from Nov. 1 on last season (.922 save percentage), that’ll be another huge driver of their success.

And if just one of the newcomers on defence exceeds expectations — or if Morgan Rielly or Carrick progress — the blueline will be better.

There are wild cards on this roster. Nazem Kadri probably won’t score 32 goals again. Marleau may show his age and fail to hit the 40-point mark. The JVR-Bozak-Marner line could cost them defensively. And the penalty kill is a mystery box given Polak, Hunwick, Smith, Martin Marincin and Nikita Soshnikov all ate key minutes on it last season.

I have a hard time adding that up to a regression, however, especially when this Leafs team was tied for the sixth best record in the NHL last year after Jan. 1. That was why they were able to push the Capitals in the first round; they were only a wild-card team due to their poor start.

What we sometimes undersell is how much better the Leafs got as the year wore on, especially if you factor in all the shootout coin flips they lost along the way (there were six in a 44-game span at one point):

Did the Leafs have the perfect off-season? No, obviously not. They spent big where they didn’t need to. They weren’t able to close the deal on a top-four D that could handle hard minutes. They didn’t get better on the fringes, i.e. fourth line centre, Matt Martin or backup goalie.

But this is a still the makings of a very good team. All the hype and expectations in the market are deserved — for once — and I can just as easily see them exceed our projections as fall short.

There’s a long way to go, but that Cup window?

It’s open.