Toronto Maple Leafs: Mitch Marner Rumours Go to Crazy Town

The Toronto Maple Leafs and Mitch Marner have not yet struck a deal.

The two parties will almost certainly come to an understanding eventually, but that hasn’t stopped the Toronto Maple Leafs rumour mill from going crazy.

Or melting down completely.

I mean, I’m all for trade rumours, and I am happy for the material, but jeez…..the ones that are circulating like mad right now are pretty crazy.

Now, I guess that doesn’t mean they won’t happen – who knows who heard what, and anyways, anything can happen.

But if we are to apply a logic test to these rumours, they don’t stand up to scrutiny.

Mitch Marner and the Toronto Maple Leafs

The first rumour came out yesterday, and involved the New York Islanders.

Forget about the fact that anyone who’d want to move from Toronto to New York must be insane, forget about the endorsements and forget about the fact that Lou was the GM who supposedly angered Marner with some kind of bonus clause in his ELC – forget all that and tell me this: why in the hell would a team overpay by four or five million dollars on a player?

The consensus value for Marner is in the 8-9 million range, with the idea that the Leafs might overpay a bit.  Now $13 million dollars would make Marner the highest paid player in the league, and don’t forget he’s the third or fourth best player on his own team.

He’s a winger who racks up assists.  Now don’t get me wrong, it would suck to lose Marner, but if another team is this stupid, you just shrug and move on.

My favorite part of this rumour is that Marner was offered this repulsive overpay, but turned it down because he wouldn’t sign for seven years.  I dunno, but for me that doesn’t ring true.

Here’s the Next Rumour

The Canucks have $5 million in cap space.  They don’t have have a first next year, but even though they can theoretically still do an offer-sheet, I think tossing away five straight firsts when your team is only half built would be pretty irresponsible.

So they can’t afford him, and they would be stupid to move the picks.  That probably wouldn’t stop Vancouver though, as their GM is among the worst in the history of professional sports, but it’s enough to make this pretty implausible when you also consider the fact that offer-sheets don’t happen, pretty much ever.

Additionally, the Canucks still haven’t signed their own free-agent, Brock Boeser a player who would have, if not for injury, posted back to back 30 goal seasons to start his career. 

I think it’s safe to say that Vancouver is not going to offer-sheet anybody.

As for a trade, I’d say it’s unlikely, although not impossible. The Canucks have an elite player on an entry-level deal that I think would be a great trade for the Leafs: Quinn Hughes.

Hughes has two years left on his ELC, and is arguably the best player in the entire world, other than his brother, not currently in the NHL. (He played five games last year).

Hughes for Marner is a slam dunk win for the Leafs.  Yes, I previously said that the Leafs couldn’t win a Marner trade, but that assumed no one would be completely crazy.

If you can get a better player who is on an dirt-cheap ELC that’s an obvious move to make, it’s just confusing why any team would offer that.

If the Canucks want to swap Hughes for Marner, the Leafs would be stupid to pass on it.  But let’s get real – that is never going to happen.  Even Jim Benning wouldn’t do that.

So my final analysis: these rumours are not going to pan out.