The Toronto Maple Leafs might see an end to the Mitch Marner saga sooner than they thought.
Or not. This is probably a false report.
According to Joshua Marshall of the “2 Mutts Podcast”, the New York Islanders are reportedly preparing to offer sheet Mitch Marner with a deal that will even out to seven years at an AAV of $13 million. Not only that, but Marshall claims that league sources told him that the Marner camp wants a five-year deal instead, as well.
Crazy stuff!
.@NYIslanders Per league source out of New York says the #Isles are getting ready to offer sheet @MapleLeafs RW Mitchell Marner. At 7 years/$91M....AAV of $13M. Marner camp wants to do a 5 year deal at $13M according to the league source. We shall see where this goes........#NHL
— Joshua Marshall (@JMarshyBosco93) August 10, 2019
Now, you’re probably thinking to yourself “haven’t I heard this exact same thing before?”. And you would be right. The speculation linking Marner to the Islanders via an offer sheet has been raging all summer long, with prior reports indicating that New York and Montreal were the two teams who seriously considered it.
That’s all well and good, but these reports make little to no sense. Like, at all. For one, the Islanders do not have $13 million in cap space at the moment – CapFriendly has them sitting at precisely $8,653,334 – and therefore could not even tender an offer sheet to Marner in their current form. As well, the Islanders still have Anthony Beauvillier and Michael Dal Colle awaiting new contracts, and while the pair of RFAs aren’t expected to command Marner-like raises, that still eats away at the team’s remaining cap quite a bit nonetheless.
But those are just the financials of it all. Now, we shift over to the emotional factors.
The message is the same as it’s always been: Mitch Marner, who grew up idolizing the Toronto Maple Leafs, is not going to spurn them in favour of signing with the New York Islanders, a team that doesn’t even have one set home arena for this coming season.
Marner was a key fixture in the recruitment video for John Tavares, too, and was superglued to the generational centre for the entirety of the 2018-19 season, predictably leading to a career year.
If he wants to give all of that up, along with the millions in endorsement deals he is set to earn in his home city, that’s completely his choice. It’s just a bad one.
Case in point; this is almost certainly a bunch of malarkey. Something tells me that Lou Lamoriello – notorious for being the most insular and leak-adverse GM perhaps in league history – is not funnelling scoops like these to the Co-Host of the 2 Mutts Podcast. No offence to Joshua Marshall, but it just doesn’t seem likely.
If the Islanders actually do offer sheet Marner, great! We’ll have something tangible to talk about when it comes to this abominable subject for the first time in months.