Mitch Marner's departure during NHL free agency has left a glaring hole among the Toronto Maple Leafs' top six forwards. The Leafs completed a sign-and-trade with the Vegas Golden Knights for the star right winger, and Toronto is left looking for a top-six forward elsewhere.
The Florida Panthers signed potential Leafs' free agent targets Sam Bennett and Brad Marchand, so Maple Leafs' general manager Brad Treliving will continue his search during the remainder of the offseason, and possibly through to next year's trade deadline.
Treliving used last offseason and the 2025 trade deadline to bolster the team's defense and goaltending with deals to secure Anthony Stolarz, Joseph Woll, Chris Tanev, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Jake McCabe, and Brandon Carlo.
With few options remaining in free agency and barring a trade that further depletes the Leafs' prospect capital or weakens the team's depth in goal and defense, Treliving and coach Craig Berube need some internal candidates to take a step forward to help fill the void left with Marner's exit.
The biggest hole to fill with Marner leaving for Vegas is on the right side of the Leafs' top line alongside star center Auston Matthews and the ever-improving Matthew Knies.
Forty-goal sniper William Nylander is an option and would undoubtedly thrive with Matthews and Knies, but it would make the Maple Leafs' forward units very top-heavy. Berube is likely to consider it. The Leafs' Atlantic Division rival, Boston Bruins, had success with a loaded top line of Marchand, Patrice Bergeron, and David Pastrnak before Bergeron's retirement and Marchand's trade to Florida.
A Knies-Matthews-Nylander trio leaves the Leafs thin on the second and third lines. Some combination of an aging John Tavares, newcomers Nicolas Roy and Matias Maccelli, Bobby McMann, Nick Robertson, and Max Domi would finish the top nine forwards.
A better option would be to move Domi to the Leafs' top line with Matthews and Knies. Domi is a gifted passer who looks to set up his teammates, often to his detriment.
Domi's vision is not Marner-esque, but he is one of the Maple Leafs' best passers and his pass-first mentality would fit best with two of the team's top goal scorers. Remember, too, that Domi played on Matthews' wing for most of the center's sixty-nine-goal season of 2023-2024.