There will be lots of interest in Mitch Marner if he goes to market, but he could circle back to the Toronto Maple Leafs
David Pagnotta: On The Latest on the Toronto Maple Leafs and pending UFA Mitch Marner and the odds of him moving or staying.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Kate Pettersen: “But let’s start first with Mitch Marner, pending free agent. Odds he stays or do we see him walking in this situation?
Pagnotta: “Yeah, you know he said on locker clean out day earlier this week that he’s going to sit down over the next few weeks with his wife, talk to his agent, decide next steps.
But according to all the reports, over the course of the season, he turned down an extension offer. He rejected the request to waive his no movement clause to go to Carolina in a package for Mikko Rantanen. Which kind of gets lost a little bit because there was, there’s a lot more to it. But that conversation expanded. They asked about Matthew Knies instead, Carolina did. Toronto said ‘No.’ This, that, the other.
Anyway, back to Mitch. On Mitch, every indication is, right now, that he’s going to be testing the waters as an unrestricted free agent. It doesn’t mean he’s closed the door on the Maple Leafs, because he could pull a Stamkos, goes and explore the market and then sign with his old club. But everything that I’ve been getting is that he is going to explore the market.
And if he does hit the open market, I’ve been I wrote about it earlier in the week. There are going to be a ton of teams going after this guy. You’re talking about Los Angeles, Chicago, Utah, Philadelphia, Calgary, San Jose etc, etc. I mean pretty much every team is going to at least inquire and any team that feels they have a legitimate shot at getting him is going to really push to make that happen. So there’s going to be a lot of interest in Marner when the time comes.
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