Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman believes that Mitch Marner could have opted to remain with the Toronto Maple Leafs had they beaten the Florida Panthers in Game 7.
On the latest episode of 32 Thoughts The Podcast released on Saturday, Friedman and co-host Kyle Bukauskas spoke about an interview William Nylander did with NHL.com’s Mike Zeisberger on Friday. Nylander was asked if his now former teammate had intentions of leaving the Leafs, to which he disputed the notion that Marner had one foot out the door as he seemed committed to the team at the time.
“My question to him was ‘Did you have any sense leaving the ice after you guys had lost to Florida in Game 7 this past spring that that was going to be Mitch Marner’s final game in a Toronto uniform?’ And he said no,” Bukauskas said. “The similarities was that he was in the same position a year ago or a year prior. And of course, he signed partway through the year his extension to stay in Toronto. But because of that, he knew a lot of the things that Mitch would have been thinking, didn’t want to bother him too much.”
Nylander was in a similar predicament during the 2023-24 season when he began the year on an expiring contract and an uncertain future beyond that campaign. He ultimately opted to re-sign with the Leafs partway through on an eight-year deal that carries an AAV of $11.5 million.
As far as Nylander was concerned, he was under the impression throughout the past year that Marner was going to follow suit when it was all said and done.
“He did say at one point during the year he asked him, ‘What are you thinking?’ And Marner said to him, ‘My plan is here to stay,’” Bukauskas said. “And then even after the season was over he asked him again, ‘What are you thinking? And Marner said, ‘I want to stay here, but let’s see what happens.’ So at that point, he was – I think – still hopeful that maybe something was going to get done. But after the season, the tone had changed a little bit to now the door was open to maybe he would be going elsewhere And of course, he ends up in Vegas.”
When it became clear that Marner’s time in Toronto was coming to an end, reports emerged around the 2025 NHL Draft that the Leafs and Golden Knights were working on a sign-and-trade that involved the star forward heading to Las Vegas. The deal became official on July 1st, with him signing an eight-year contract with Vegas at an AAV of $12 million while Toronto got Nicolas Roy in return.
While this is how things ended up playing out, Friedman ponders an alternate reality where it was the Leafs and not the Panthers that advanced to the third round on that faithful night of May 18.
“There are other players who feel that when Marner didn’t sign last summer that the writing was on the wall. My position is this: If they beat Florida in the second round – which they should have done – I don’t see how Mitch Marner isn’t in Toronto,” he said. “I could be totally wrong, it’s happened maybe once in my 55 years of existence that I could be totally wrong. But you tell me if I’m nuts, Kyle. I just don’t see a way if they beat Florida that Mitch Marner doesn’t find a way to re-sign in Toronto, and the Maple Leafs don’t find a way to re-sign Marner.”
If the Leafs did win that game, then there’s also a good chance that perhaps former team president Brendan Shanahan gets his contract renewed as well. It also likely means that their offseason plays out a lot differently since they likely won’t have the cap space available to acquire the likes of Matias Maccelli or Dakota Joshua. It’s also fair to wonder how much that would have impacted John Tavares and Matthew Knies’ extensions as far as cap hit or term is concerned.
Alas, we will never know what exactly would have gone down if the Leafs had emerged victorious in Game 7. The Panthers went on to win the Stanley Cup, Marner is now a Golden Knight, and the Leafs enter a new era with the Core Four being no more.
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