Ahead of the NHL draft and opening of free agency, MLHS’ Anthony Petrielli joined The Fan Morning Show to discuss Mitch Marner’s likely departure, the John Tavares contract negotiation, the opportunities in the trade market, and whether the Leafs are likely to take a step back in 2025-26.
Petrielli on the rumours of Mitch Marner signing in Vegas, and where the Golden Knights would rank on the scale of most annoying destinations for Marner:
I would view the scale as this: Anybody in the division would be nuclear — if it were Florida, or even Buffalo, then nobody would respect. Outside of the division, next is Carolina, because of the Rantanen trade. Going to Carolina after Marner nixed the trade, and then Rantanen lit up the playoffs, would be hard to stomach. After that comes the rest of the league.
It is really more about Marner than where he is going. There are probably some hurt feelings on both sides, and at this point, I don’t think anybody is expecting a change of heart.
It is disappointing. Both sides made mistakes along the way. There should probably be some self-reflection by the Marner camp, but I don’t think there ever will be. That’s what makes it not really matter where he goes. If people are looking at it and are honest, Marner seems to be playing the victim card, but I don’t know if he is the victim.
Petrielli on the John Tavares negotiation:
There is a ton of time left. I still lean toward it as more likely to get done than not. It is the silly time of year when all of the rumours fly around, and a lot of the time, people don’t actually know anything, but they hear the rumours fly and come to conclusions about what is happening or how a player is positioning themselves.
We just have to see how the number plays out and go from there. If you end up getting a guy who is capable of scoring 30 goals again next year and having a highly productive year at a position every team in the league needs signed for $5 million plus or minus, it is a really good deal on the open market still.
Petrielli on whether the Leafs might take a step back next season:
I don’t think they are going to win the division next year if I were to handicap it right now, but I don’t know if the team will be worse, in a weird way. They weren’t good at controlling play. Every time you watched them play a good team, they spent most of the night in their own end.
It is not like they dominated last season. They ended up having a good record and winning the division, but I don’t think they can look at it and say, “That team was really good, constantly dictating things on their terms.”
They are going to take a step back on talent regardless, but I do wonder if they can be a better hockey team. It is a really fine line to be threading there, and I am not saying it will play out that way, but I don’t think it necessarily has to all be doom and gloom.
A large part of it is about how healthy Matthews is; if he is going to play as he did last season, they are probably in tough, but he can play like the guy everyone knows he is capable of being, I still think they are going to be a really good team.
I don’t think it has to be a huge step back. I think it is going to be a different kind of hockey team, but one that could still be a problem. They are really good in net with one of the best goalie tandems in the league. They have a good veteran defense one through six or seven; it lacks a top guy, but it is a deep, solid group.
Matthews is in the prime of his career, and he has a responsibility on his end to pick up some of the slack. He didn’t have an elite year by his standards. William Nylander was second in the league in goals last year.
There was enough there where they should confidently be a playoff team. From there, they have a ton of cap space to play with, so how can they change things around?
They should stand firm with John Tavares. It is not a blank cheque situation. This is the number that works, and if not, they have to do something different.
Petrielli on how the Leafs might be able to unearth a diamond in the rough via trade:
It is so hard. We will throw out names and discuss them, and obviously, the Panthers look like geniuses now, but if you look at the Panthers a few years earlier, when they made those moves, Buffalo thought they did it when they acquired Brandon Montour. He was supposed to be a big deal there. It didn’t work out, and Florida grabbed him for a third-round pick at the deadline. He panned out. Sam Bennett wasn’t productive at the end of his tenure in Calgary at all, and now he is their second-line center with two Cup rings on his fingers.
Looking at who could be available, Dawson Mercer could be intriguing — first-round pick pedigree, played for Team Canada, has a 27-goal season under his belt, and he has scored 19 and 20 since. I don’t know how available he is, but he was on Kypreos’ trade board, and it caught my eye. This is a 23-24-year-old with several productive seasons in the league already, and $4 million is not the worst contract.
Could the Leafs make a trade like that work? It will be tricky because they don’t have a lot of draft picks to throw around, but every team is trying to get better right now, other than maybe Pittsburgh. I don’t know if draft picks are really getting teams anywhere. It is more about maneuvering cap space and potentially more hockey-type trades.
Lawson Crouse has been out and around. He was healthy scratched once and makes over $4 million; it is only one healthy scratch, but it is kind of an eyebrow-raiser when a guy making that much money is scratched, and he produced only 18 points last year. Steven Lorentz outproduced him.
The point is, it doesn’t sound pretty, kind of like Montour and Bennett at the time. You have to take some swings on young guys, and hope that a change of scenery works and your evaluation was correct.
Playing alongside Nylander is a sell. He is a really good player. We saw him prop up Pontus Holmberg last year. Players with more pedigree will do well beside him, or potentially Matthews. There are good selling points for Toronto.
Petrielli on the team’s opportunity to remake the bottom six:
There is no more excuse for the bottom six to be on a budget. That is a positive.
The constant theme around Toronto is that it is eye-popping to see a 102-point player out the door, and that makes people nervous, but every single year, they couldn’t get it done in the playoffs. And it’s not just Mitch Marner; Auston Matthews, John Tavares, and William Nylander all took a step back in their play generally, and it was based on a model where those guys were making so much money that they had to carry the mail and make up for any other deficiencies in the roster because they coudln’t afford to fill the other holes.
The Leafs were running a third line against Florida that, ice time-wise, was generally Scott Laughton, Steven Lorentz, and Calle Jarnkrok. Those guys make $4.5 million combined, and they were playing a Florida line where Anton Lundell alone makes more money than they do. We haven’t even mentioned Brad Marchand yet.
They couldn’t fill it, and now they can. It would be nice to have a little bit more jam and energy down there in terms of players who are more physical, but we should never look at that kind of third line again going into the playoffs. There should be serious dollars and commitment put toward it now. You should be looking at it and saying, “It is genuinely a three or four-line team,” whereas the regular conversations in the past couple of years were, “If the top guys don’t do it, no one is doing it.”
