After another heartbreaking Round 1 elimination, the Toronto Maple Leafs do not appear to be content with running it back. How daring is management willing to be? That is the major question. In May, team president Brendan Shanahan stated that “everything is on the table,” which may include shaking up the core.
Auston Matthews’ four-year contract and William Nylander’s eight-year agreement are both expected to begin on July 1. This focuses emphasis on Mitch Marner, a core member who is a year away from unrestricted free agency. The Maple Leafs have a few options with Marner, one of their top wingers. They can officially prolong the 2025 UFA in one week, on July 1. They can keep the status quo and enter the season sans Marner’s extension, deferring that decision until later. Alternatively, they might look into trades this summer and start the 2024-25 season fresh. There is no ideal response. Extending him sooner rather than later would provide the team more long-term cost certainty while building.
Maintaining the status quo also has risks: the team might fail to locate a trade partner by mid-year (which could be difficult given cap space) or lose Marner to free agency. The latter is something general manager Brad Treliving recently grappled with in Calgary (see Johnny Gaudreau), and it contributed to the Flames’ derailment. Trades present complications, particularly for the side losing the top player in the transaction. Treliving has experience with this, dating back to the Matthew Tkachuk deal. However, a team can move the more well-known player and still come out ahead, as the Winnipeg Jets did when they traded Pierre-Luc Dubois.
If Toronto trades Marner, management must find a transformative return to help address areas of need, such as defense, a goalie partner for Joseph Woll, supporting forwards with more sandpaper and size, or an up-and-coming top-six wing to replace the player leaving. However, Treliving told The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun earlier this month that the franchise is not trying to trade Marner just for the sake of it. “If there’s a way to make our team better, we’re going to do it,” he added. “But we’re certainly not going to make a trade just so we can pound our chest and say, ‘Look, we’re different.'”
