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It’s over. The numbers are in.

6 years, $10.893m per season.

H/T to Puckpedia for the breakdown:

Mitch Marner’s agent, Darren Ferris, drove a very hard bargain and got his client a huge contract that was over market value for the player’s position, age, and output. Marner is now the highest-paid right-winger and second-highest paid winger in the league on just his second contract, which is hard to wrap your head around. This makes him the seventh highest-paid player in the league across all positions. All three of the holy trinity are signed now, but there certainly were no discounts like many assumed when the core players were consulted by management about going after John Tavares last summer.

The fact that we are talking about six years and $10.893 million is a testament to how effective Marner’s camp was in shifting the goalposts by anchoring their ask to Matthews’ $11.6 million AAV deal: Comparing players of different positions, skillsets and goal-scoring production should be a non-starter in negotiations. Let’s make this clear: This is an unprecedented award for a player that is not the best at his position in the league, but it’s now up to Marner to change that. This is very close to what Tavares received as a superstar center UFA (compared to Marner selling just two UFA seasons), to help underscore what a big leap this is.

The must-haves for the Leafs were getting Marner signed beyond the expiration of Nylander and Matthews’ deals, and not impairing another contention season with a high-profile holdout. At a minimum, they have accomplished those two goals.

We’ll see if there is any collateral damage to Marner’s reputation — and make no mistake, he was blitzkrieg’d on TV, radio, in print, and on social media — and just how forgiving the fan base is; he missed only a day of camp, but there is no denying this process was ugly and challenged many fans’ view of an unequivocal hometown fan favourite. It will also be fascinating if Dubas and co. can make this whole thing work with three forwards now in the $11 million+ range — and a top-four making over $40 million total — as they attempt to sustain a sizable window of contention. A distillation of the current positional cap imbalance at the present: The team is stretched to the maximum cap-wise and they’ve got three 40-60 point defensemen currently signed at a combined cap hit of under $12 million (Rielly, Barrie, Muzzin — two of which are pending UFAs) and a high-end starting goalie paid $5 million who needs a new contract in a couple of seasons.

The Big Three are all under contract and they’re all in at fair-to-more-than-fair salary figures. With great contractual commitments come great expectations. Game on.

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