Mitch Marner Holds All the Cards When It Comes To His Future
Jamison Coyle and Mike Rupp on the NHL Network discussed the five burning questions remaining in the offseason—the first question concerns Mitch Marner and his future with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
NHLRumors.com Transcriptions****
NHL Rumors: Will Mitch Marner Start the Season With the Toronto Maple Leafs?
Jamison Coyle: “Alright, five burning questions. Question number one. What is Mitch Marner’s future in Toronto right now?”
Mike Rupp: “Yeah, I mean, this has got to be the biggest story. I think as far as there’s a lot of uncertainty with certain situations in hockey, but this is the one that kind of jumps out to me the most is that part of me, and what you’re hearing, and we don’t know, I mean, inside that organization, they know the answer to this. I just can’t imagine. I just can’t imagine this team moving on from him, especially right now, as he’s still got time left. This is a core group that they firmly believe in, and he’s a big piece of that puzzle.”
Coyle: “Why don’t they want to move on from him? What is that narrative?”
NHL Rumors: Can Toronto Maple Leafs Mitch Marner Do Anything to Earn a Mid-Season Extension?
Rupp: “I don’t think there’s anything that you’d want to move on from with Mitch Marner. And he is a special player. The problem I think, is the cap space or the cap hits that you see right there and the fact that the contract is expiring, and there’s gonna be other teams out there that are going to pay him value that you probably can fit in, but I don’t know because of what you’ve had in the way that you’ve been built as far as the financial side of it.
It hasn’t worked for you to have that much money tied up in a few amount of players, right. So it’s this really weird spot where it’s the business side of things that is kind of in the spotlight in that city of Toronto. There’s a ton of pressure. So I don’t know what this means for Mitch Marner. I will say, though, that Mitch Marner holds all the cards.
NHL Rumors: Will Mitch Marner Start the Season With the Toronto Maple Leafs?
So if he wants to sit there and say hey, I’m gonna play out. He’s a Toronto boy if I want to play this thing out, that’s fine. Is he gonna walk for nothing? Like, I can’t imagine that being the conversation come next summer, but I mean, this is a lot on the line here, but the biggest thing for the Leafs is they want to take that next step, and Mitch Marner being a part of it, and some of the other moves they’ve made in this offseason if they could feel like hey, we feel like this is our best chance of winning the Stanley Cup. Maybe it bite that bullet. You got to stay tuned. This one’s really appealing.”