It is becoming increasingly obvious that Mitch Marner wants nothing to do with the Toronto Maple Leafs and is trying to get as far away from the team as possible.
The pending unrestricted free agent winger is about to become the top player available to sign this summer and could be getting as much as $14 million a year from some team desperate to inject a highly skilled player into their lineup. But what specific team might that be? What team views signing Marner as potentially the final piece of their puzzle to contend for the Stanley Cup? Or, what team wants Marner as a foundational piece to go along with the young players that they have accumulated through the last several years?
On Monday's episode of 32 Thoughts: The Podcast, Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman revealed a small clue as to where Marner will sign this summer, and it's somewhat unsurprising.
"I know that some of his Leafs teammates have suspected that Marner's going to go West," Friedman said.
We have previously heard reports that the Carolina Hurricanes, Anaheim Ducks, Vegas Golden Knights, Chicago Blackhawks, and even the San Jose Sharks could be interested in signing Marner but now the pattern seems obvious. Outside of the Hurricanes, every team we have seen linked to Marner has been in the Western Conference.
That might just be coincidence but now that Friedman is hearing it from some of his Toronto teammates, Marner's mind has been set on heading out west and as far away from the Leafs as possible. Being out that way means that he will just need to visit Toronto one time per season for a game, instead of signing with someone like the Hurricanes, where there is potential for many more homecomings where he could face some roaring boo's from the Scotiabank Arena crowd.
Take this and consider that Marner reportedly is closing all doors on a return to the Leafs and not even taking their calls about a potential contract to stay in Toronto, and the 28-year-old winger clearly just wants to leave and never look back.
We'll see where it goes from here but we might be in for another month of this Marner spectacle. July 1 will come and go and Marner will spend his days visiting the facilities of teams who are interested in his signature and all we will hear about is how much he didn't want to re-sign with the Leafs.
Here's hoping that general manager Brad Treliving has a plan in place to somehow replace his production in the lineup -- but good riddance.