At 6:58pm on September 13th, Mitch Marner signed a contract with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
He finally signs with the Toronto Maple Leafs and it’s on Friday the 13th, out of all the days. Eerie coincidence isn’t it?
It was a whirlwind, that’s for sure. From what we heard two days ago about the Leafs offering Marner $11 million for eight years in June and him declining it, to 48 hours later. It was stressful, and thankfully it’s now over.
$10.893 million is the exact number. I was definitely curious after hearing that he signed whether or not he’d go the Auston Matthews route and add his number in there, and he did. The 93, which is the number he wore in junior with the London Knights.
He got an extra year of term and just $800,000 shy of what Matthews makes. For Marner, I can’t see it being a big deal, even though it was for most of the negotiations to get “Matthews money”. The Leafs GM, Kyle Dubas managed to get him at a number that works for both Marner, and the team.
Marner’s contract isn’t that bad
A lot of people are saying that they don’t like this deal, adding that he’s not worth this much. But, are you sure about that?
If Marner continues to be a winger on John Tavares’ line, it only gets better and better. Marner isn’t going to decline, he’s going to keep improving. If there’s more improvement this season, Marner could hit the 100 point mark for his first time in his career.
One of the reasons why people may think it’s a bad deal for Toronto might be because of the cap. But with a new U.S. tv deal coming, as well as a new team (Seattle) joining the NHL, the cap is expected to rise a fair amount.
Two or three years into this deal, we could be saying, “Wow. This was a steal for Marner.” It was a gamble for Dubas, but he stuck to his word. He could, and he did. But, I’m not surprised Dubas did it because I knew it all along, I’m surprised he got it done this fast.
Marner’s an excellent player who see’s the ice incredibly well, and there aren’t many players in the league who can see it like him. Marner supposedly set the bar for most of the RFA’s contracts. With his being the seventh highest AAV in the league, I don’t think any RFA will top that this year.
This was a fair deal for both sides. No one got ahead of the other, and while contract talks were a little rough within the media circle, I’m thankful it’s finally over. I’m also thankful that Dubas is the Leafs GM, because if not, we could have lost one of the big three.