The Toronto Maple Leafs are in a tough spot.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have to sign Mitch Marner to a contract extension, but Marner is asking for the moon.
According to Dreger, Marner is looking for a deal north of ten million annually, and perhaps as much as Auston Matthew’s $11.6 (capfriendly.com).
If this was just a normal player, I’d say forget it.
But Marner isn’t a normal player. He’s the first home-grown, home-drafted super-star this franchise has ever had (at least in recent memory).
Just Pay Him
A protracted negotiation helps no one. As we saw last season with Nylander, it can be hard to regain your game if you miss training camp.
The Leafs have a limited window to win a Championship and it’s not worth wasting another season on salary cap minutia.
Really what did the Leafs get by fighting with Nylander? Maybe they saved 500K annually, but was the cost worth it? They almost certainly are playing game seven at home if they have Nylander in training camp, so were the possible savings worth it?
I doubt it.
And they won’t be with Marner. Let’s say Marner is worth $9.5 million. That’s probably in line with his comparables. Well what’s an extra million to get the deal done when you’re dealing with the most popular player in the history of the team since Wendel Clark?
If Kyle Dubas has to trade Marner, or take the picks (though I would bet nearly anything that no offer sheet ever materializes) he will never recover.
He will never, ever be forgiven for losing Mitch Marner. A promising career could be derailed here if he digs in and fights on principle.
The fact is, even at the high-end of the demands that Dreger is voicing on behalf of Marner and his agent, you’re still getting the entire prime of a player who scored over 90 points at age 21.
Is Marner worth 11.5 million today? No. Will he be worth that in a year or two? Almost certainly.
And he’s only going to get better from here.
“He doesn’t drive a line”
“He’s just a winger, centres get paid more”
Whatever.
He’s 21, and he’d be a centre on almost any other team that drafted him. With the exception of three, maybe four players, every single player who has ever scored as much as Marner just did age 21 or younger is in the hall of fame, or will be soon.
So what we have is an athlete who was born and raised and drafted here, who is beloved by virtually everyone, and who stands approximately a 95% of chance of being elected to the hall of fame (assuming he plays a full career) and being one of the best players to ever where the Leafs uniform.
Giving bad contracts to aging players never works. But giving a bad-right-now-but-almost-certainly-not-bad-in-the-future contract to the hear and soul of your team (and city) isn’t really a losing proposition.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have nothing to gain by fighting with Marner. It sucks that he knows that and is subsequently asking for a lot of money, but whatever.
On paper, he isn’t remotely close to as good as Auston Matthews. As a hockey player only, Matthews in a special stratosphere reserved for three or four players at a time.
But as a member of the team, as a personality, leader, symbol etc. Mitch Marner is worth every penny. In fifty years, the Leafs have only had a handful of players this good, and none of them were from Toronto beloved by all.
It’s almost impossible to acquire players like this, so you can’t lose him.
Pay him.