The fallout from the Trade Deadline is starting to settle, revealing more about the Carolina Hurricanes attempt to flip star winger Mikko Rantanen. The Dallas Stars ultimately won the sweepstakes, landing Rantanen and an eight-year extension in exchange for top young forward Logan Stankoven, two first round picks, and two third round picks. But Carolina had multiple other fish on the line, including getting well down the path to send Rantanen to the Toronto Maple Leafs. The deal ultimately fell apart because Toronto wasn’t willing to send winger Mitch Marner back the other way, per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman.
Like Rantanen before he signed in Dallas, Marner is a pending free agent who’s likely to demand a serious payday when he hits the open market. But Marner wasn’t willing to discuss an extension mid-season, per Chris Johnston of The Athletic. A long-term commitment was a prerequisite for the Hurricanes, leading to Toronto’s big splash falling to land. Johnston adds that the deal officially fell apart when Marner refused to waive his full no-movement clause.
Without Marner involved, Toronto’s final offer is said to have been top prospects Fraser Minten and Easton Cowan, and two first round picks per Nick Kypreos on Sportsnet 590. When that package was turned down, Toronto opted to instead send Minten, a first-round pick, and a fourth-round to the Boston Bruins for top defenseman Brandon Carlo. Carlo is under contract through the 2026-27 season at a manageable $3.625MM cap hit, after Boston retained 15 percent in the trade.
The implications of this deal would have been transformative. Marner has been deeply engrained on Toronto’s top line since making his NHL debut in 2016-17. He scored 61 points in 77 games as a rookie, and two seasons later scratched the century mark with 94 points in 82 games. Injuries and a shortened season held Marner to just 67 points in the next two seasons, but he found new heights when the NHL returned to full after the pandemic. Marner scored 35 goals and 97 points in 2021-22 and topped it with 99 points in 2022-23. Two years later, he’s on pace to confidently clear the 100-point mark this season, with 77 points in 61 games so far.
Marner would have certainly matched with Carolina’s top-end. He plays a high-skill, downhill style that could have fit well between the aggressive forechecking of Seth Jarvis and poised playmaking of Sebastian Aho. Instead, Carolina lands 22-year-old Stankoven to fill that role, after the latter scored 29 points in 59 games with Dallas. Stankoven brings a wave of hard-working grit and future stability to a Hurricanes program that’s earned a confident playoff spot in each of the last six seasons.
Through the thick of what could have been, Marner has doubled down on his commitment to the Leafs with this news. Presented with a chance for a short-term trip to Carolina before entering free agency, Marner has instead decided to hold true to the blue-and-white. He is set to enter unrestricted free agency for the first time in his career this summer, and has emphasized his desire to save contract talks for after the season. With plenty of time before Toronto plays their last games, Leafs fans can stand by this bode of confidence as an indication that Marner could be looking to stick around for even longer.
CAR was on crack even suggesting this.
It’s a club executive doing there do diligence.
Mikko Rantanen is better off in Dallas & will do well there.
As for Mitch Marner, he has such a love affair with Toronto (despite them hating on him a lot but then again they seem to hate on everything lol). He’ll probably take a lower price just to stay in Toronto. I will say, you would think Toronto fans would be fed up of their “Core 4” as it hasn’t done squat for them in getting a whiff for a Cup not that I care. IMO they’re the Dallas Cowboys of the NHL haha.
The time to trade Marner was before the NTC kicked in, but I suspect both sides want to reunite and always have, it’s just a case of posturing for dollars.
Toronto really mishandled the big four contracts, there were numerous miscues– not letting the best player set the team’s salary ceiling, jumping a year early on a big FA signing– but they’ve made the most of it and now have the best roster they’ve had in this era.
And the window hasn’t closed… the completely rebuilt (and good) goaltending and top five D is all under contract for the next couple years, most of their top nine is under contract, and Knies/Tavares/Marner should be able to re-signed for roughly what they’re making collectively today, considering raises for Knies and Marner and a decrease for Tavares.
For this rumour to be plausible, Toronto/Marner would have to be far apart and I don’t see that being the case.
This is the team for the next two seasons.
Knies is on an entry level contract, Marner is slightly younger than Rantanen but will likely get a similar paycheck (12m a year), and Tavares is still worth 6-8m a year, if not more on the open market. I don’t see them keeping all three.
Please keep posting. Watching amateur-hour GMs do their thing never really gets old!
Sorry, were you expecting actual GM’s to be posting here or something?
I guess I’ll make a popular move and throw you on ignore like the rest of the site has.
@elite-finnish
If Tavares takes 6-8 mil, that paycut will more than make up for marner’s new contract. He’s basically at 11 mil now and even if Tavares only takes 3 mil less (it’ll be more than that), that will be more than enough. Marner isn’t getting more than Matthews so will probably land in about 12-13 range so leafs will still have ~1 mil left over.
The cap is going up like 7.5 mil so that gives them more than 8 mil to sign knies after Tavares and marner if they want to. If they need a bit more then they can trade some minor contracts out. With Carlo on the team now, they have the top 5 dmen locked in under contract so it’ll be fine.
Looking at their cap space, they currently have 27.5 mil for next year. That’s more than enough to re-sign those 3 plus fill out the bottom 6 + 6th dman.
If Tavares take 6 instead of 8 then that makes things even better. This core hasn’t gotten it done but I’m not sure what you can really do here. You can let Tavares walk but then you need to replace 2C for around the same price.
Bottom line. Toronto goaltending will be their demise.
This could work out for Carolina in the off-season, but it’s a total disaster for this season.
The keys are Nikishin and the ability to land someone like Marner or Ehlers with all that cap space. A lot riding on this offseason.
After today’s Canes game, maybe Tulsty has us all outsmarted, lol!
Who knew that Jankowski was the steal of the deadline? lol