Every spring, I attempt to logically lay out the Maple Leafs’ offseason picture, identifying the team’s needs and the suitable paths to addressing them while eyeing the short and long-term salary cap ramifications.
There is no point burying the lede this year. We might as well jump into the deep end right away by discussing the Mitch Marner situation. Everything hangs in the balance until this file is settled one way or the other.
The Leafs enter the offseason with roughly $26.8 million in cap space, assuming Ryan Reaves isn’t on the roster (you can subtract $1.1 million from that number if you include him; I don’t). Barring any trades, the team has seven defensemen and two goalies locked in, so the cap space would be allocated entirely to filling out their five open forward spots in the starting 12 plus a 13th forward, which is something the Leafs should absolutely budget for in an Olympic year that will cause another condensed schedule.
According to most salary projectors, such as AFP Analytics, Marner’s next contract is ballparked around $13 million, which may or may not account for how his agent conducts business. Either way, it’s pretty safe to suggest that any Marner contract would take up approximately half of the Leafs‘ salary cap space. That’s without taking into account a new contract for Matthew Knies.
At this point, the Leafs haven’t closed the door on a Marner return. Elliotte Friedman noted that Leafs brass will seek clarity from the Marner camp on their position in the coming weeks, although it’s unclear if Marner is even open to a return.
Marner has been the elephant in the room all season for the Leafs and will continue to be until a definitive answer is determined.
Let’s first recap a bit of the timeline, which could be a novel, but we’ll keep it concise by focusing on the past year:
- At the 2023-24 end-of-season media availability, Marner noted that his goal is to stay with the Leafs, explicitly stating, “That’d be a goal. I’ve expressed my love for this place. Obviously, I’ve grown up here, so we’ll start thinking about that now and try to figure something out.”
- It was reported during the 2024 offseason that Brad Treliving and Marner’s agent, Darren Ferris, did hold some preliminary talks, but nothing came to fruition.
- When the 2024-25 season began, Marner addressed the situation right away in camp while suggesting to Elliotte Friedman that he wasn’t opposed to negotiating during the season.
- Then, during the season, Marner’s camp wouldn’t negotiate. As the trade deadline approached, the Leafs presented Marner with the Mikko Rantanen trade offer, which he declined — as is his right — while also not yet negotiating a contract, but seemingly informing the Leafs that they’re still his preferred destination. Throughout it all, Marner still seemed to wonder why his public perception is what it is in the Toronto market.
- During the season, right through to the very end, Marner’s linemate, Matthew Knies, and his long-time teammate, John Tavares, reiterated their desire to remain in Toronto and find solutions to make it work. Marner, meanwhile, dodged every question about wanting to be in Toronto, and when the season ended, he spoke about the team in the past tense.
If Marner really, truly, wanted to stay, he would vocalize it, and he would likely already be under contract. Nylander and Matthews didn’t even come close to these deadlines. It’s hard not to watch this all unfold over the past year and not think at least one of the following things is true: Marner’s camp doesn’t negotiate in good faith, he’s working his leverage points to make the most money possible, and/or he simply doesn’t want to return.
Frankly, in any of those scenarios, should the Leafs really even bother trying to keep Marner? The Leafs certainly shouldn’t bend over backward to sign someone unsure about playing for them by upping the dollar figure, and if Marner is sure he wants to be in Toronto but is playing games to milk every last cent out of the Leafs, they should also not want to retain him.
The following quote stood out from Keith Pelley’s press conference following the dismissal of Brendan Shanahan:
“I said it prior to coming to Toronto, and I really found myself thinking over the last 10 years in Europe — running the European Tour and the Ryder Cup — that the greatest game on earth is hockey… And the greatest hockey team in the world is the Toronto Maple Leafs.”
This franchise has the biggest fan base in the world, is the most valuable team in the NHL, and the city has produced more NHL players than any other place. Like it or not, the NHL runs through Toronto/Ontario. This market is not for everyone, but it’s a clear destination for players in the league, and the Leafs, by and large, do not have a problem recruiting talent. It was the only Canadian team Jake McCabe would waive his trade protection to join. Chris Tanev clearly wanted to come home. So did Scott Laughton. Years ago, so, too, did John Tavares. Max Pacioretty turned down other offers.
We could go on and on, but long story short, Brad Treliving is no longer in Calgary, where the Flames are essentially never in the running to secure the services of top players on the open market and can’t really convince them to come there unless they wildly overpay.
If Leafs brass are going to talk about how great the franchise is and how big of a responsibility it is to wear the Maple Leaf, they have to conduct business through this lens as well. They certainly shouldn’t beg players to stay, engage in negotiations where one party refuses to participate, or pay some sort of tax because the player feels slighted or has to “live with” the pressure of the market.
It’s a privilege to play in Toronto, and management should run the team accordingly. Any inbound player must want to climb to the mountain top. Anything less, and Toronto probably isn’t for them. And that’s okay.
When the Panthers won the Cup last June, official parade attendance was never announced, but they went into a rainy day expecting around 200K. There was anywhere between 1-2 million at the Toronto Raptors parade, depending on who you ask. That’s the Raptors; the Leafs are stratospheres apart. It’s part and parcel: Toronto comes with not just high rewards but high levels of scrutiny as well.
Now, in a world where he takes some form of pay cut — i.e., some kind of a humble gesture to leave some money on the table in order to win in Toronto — it would be more than reasonable to welcome Marner back. He’s a really good player, and once upon a time, it mattered that he is a local boy. If he wants to stay in Toronto and fix his legacy, at an appropriate cost, it is something the Leafs can and should work with.
Of course, the odds of this happening appear slim to none right now. I can already hear his camp frothing at the mouth, “Matthews and Nylander didn’t! Why should I?” The culture around contracts of constant pettiness and one-upping each other in Toronto really has to go.
It’s unfortunate it got to this point because this is a good hockey team. In my estimation, the Leafs were the second-best team in the East this season. Really, only one playoff opponent worried me, and the Leafs ran into them in round two. Losing Marner, given the team’s capabilities, will unquestionably hurt.
But Marner is not a blank-cheque player. This isn’t Connor McDavid or Nathan MacKinnon. The Leafs shouldn’t sell their soul to keep him.
Now that Shanahan has been dismissed, one of my reflections on the former President’s tenure has been that he was too afraid to lose a big trade with one of his core players. He banked on their talent and waited for them to learn, in fear of giving up on one and losing a trade in the process (a fear probably not helped by the Nazem Kadri trade playing out the way it did). Obviously, the Leafs never did trade a core piece, and along the way, it became all about pampering and protecting them — and not just Marner, to be clear.
Over the past five seasons, Marner is seventh in the NHL in points. He is a really good player, and the loss will be felt, but the same problem is happening year after year after year: The Leafs’ top players don’t deliver enough in crunch time, and their depth is too weak to compensate because they have too many cap dollars concentrated at the top of their lineup.
The cap numbers really do tell the story, but let’s look ahead now. There are essentially three paths to explore, so let’s play them out.
For the purposes of this exercise, we’ll level set the Leafs’ salary outlook to make it even across the board. We’ll assume fairly conservative contracts for some players who are all but assured to return. Keep in mind, this is not necessarily what I think will happen; it is just a rough baseline:
- Matthew Knies has been projected anywhere between a bridge in the low 6s to a long-term deal in the 8s, so I’ll hedge the difference and put him at $7 million.
- Craig Berube loved Pontus Holmberg; he played over 12 minutes per game in the regular season and playoffs with ample top-six time. His production is low, but the ice time will help his arbitration case, so I’ll assume he receives at least the fully buriable amount of $1.15 million.
- Steven Lorentz was mentioned by name by Keith Pelley in his press conference last week; the Leafs like his size and positive attitude, and he produced a solid 2024-25 season. Some projections place Lorentz in the $1.5 million range, but I’ll shade a hair under at $1.35 million.
- I’ll also assume Ryan Reaves will be buried again.
That gives the Leafs roughly $17.3M in cap space with 10 forwards, seven defensemen, and two goalies signed.
Sign Marner and fill out the roster
I don’t think we need to explore this one in too much detail. If Marner signs for the rumoured $13 million — or let’s say somehow $12 million, even — the Leafs are looking at $4-5 million in cap space to acquire a 2C, plus potentially signing a 13th forward. We’d spend the offseason talking about budget depth adds like Michael Eyssimont and Justin Brazeau to go along with essentially the same team from last season, likely minus a 38-goal scoring John Tavares to boot.
This basically leaves the Leafs in exactly the same place: Their top players need to come up big, or they are toast. The depth won’t be good enough because they will have no cap space to do anything else, at least for this season. In the following year, the Leafs would be looking at roughly $21 million in cap space, and that still includes David Kampf on the roster, with all of Matthews, Marner, Nylander, and Knies locked in, their entire defense still signed, plus Joseph Woll under contract.
I don’t know how Brad Treliving could justify this path.
Sign Marner, and trade away other contracts to clear cap space
This second option at least has some real potential and feasibility. It really depends on who the Leafs can trade, whether it would cost them anything to move the player/contract, and what they receive in return. There are too many variables for us to fully explore this path in this space, but we’ll give it a quick rundown.
The most oft-cited candidates to quickly shed dollars are David Kampf and Calle Jarnkrok, for fair reasons. But, even if they can trade them both off without a) retaining salary or b) taking salary back, they would have under $8.8 million to fill three forward spots. It works out to just under $3 million per player when they need two top-six forwards, including a center, and a bottom-six forward (and that’s to run only a minimum 12-forward unit).
For this to really work, the Leafs would really need to move a bigger contract. At minimum, this means Max Domi, but the other player to note in this discussion is Morgan Rielly, who has a full no-movement clause.
Is another team taking on Domi’s contract straight up following a 33-point season? Would it cost the Leafs to move him? Would they have to take a “bad” contract back? Those are all fair questions, and they’d apply to Morgan Rielly as well (to go along with navigating Rielly’s full NMC).
That is a lot of gymnastics to keep three stars together who have come up empty in every big game, while potentially getting priced out of a 38-goal center along the way, only making it a less productive core that the team is running back.
There’s a path with the right trades, signings, etc., to make this work. It would also, realistically, require Marner to take, in his mind, a notable discount. Considering Mikko Rantanen just signed for $12 million AAV, this number really should be the high-water mark. You can argue that Rantanen went to a no-income-tax state, but you can also argue that Rantanen is simply better than Marner; he won a Cup and has 122 playoff points in 98 games. It’s not even close when the chips are down.
This is probably the most unlikely scenario all around, but it theoretically could work out well.
Don’t sign Marner, and weaponize your cap space
We’ll likely need a separate article to work through this scenario. The options are endless.
Without Marner, the Leafs will almost certainly re-sign John Tavares. It would be too much point production walking out the door for free (178) between the two players, and they still need to make the playoffs. Plus, there is a shallow UFA market, especially down the middle. By all indications, Tavares is willing to take a discount to stay, too. It would be hard to justify walking away from his production and ability to play center only to overpay middling players in free agency.
Tavares at a hometown discount annual average of, let’s say, $5 million would give the Leafs over $12 million in cap space to round out their forward group as currently constructed, along with signing another forward.
If the Leafs also move Kampf — it’s likely, given he was a healthy scratch essentially all playoffs — it’s close to $15 million for two regulars and a depth player. That opens all kinds of possibilities, including the Leafs taking on salary from cash-strapped teams.
The Leafs would need to use the cap space wisely — it’s only as good as the decisions you make with it — but if the goal is to get deeper and control play better, this is the best path to get there. On the flip side, I’m not sure how paying someone who helped contribute to those results (to some degree) $13+ million fixes that.
The reality of the situation is that the Leafs are in a tough spot either way. Losing a 100-point player for free is not ideal by any means. But if they sign Marner above market rate relative to his peers, it will be the same situation it’s been for years. They will be banking on the stars to get the job done with little depth behind them (save for a rookie exploding or the GM finding some crazy value against the market).
This will be a massive offseason for the Leafs, no matter what. Either they are locking in a star and continuing down the road of attempting to find the right combination around the same three core players, or they will re-allocate their cap differently in hopes of achieving a better playoff outcome.
