LeBrun: Leafs-Predators Mitch Marner trade hysteria kicks off NHL silly season (2024)

We are indeed in NHL silly season.

The time of year when a general manager like Barry Trotz is asked about Mitch Marner point-blank in a local media session.

And don’t get me wrong, I love that a reporter would ask. There is no bad question. You never know what you’re going to get as an answer! I’m the king of stupid questions. As a piece of advice to young sports writers, some of my so-called stupid questions over the years have gotten the best responses in return from GMs, coaches and players.

But in this case, Trotz essentially laughed it off.

Oh trust me, Trotz has seen the speculation linking his Nashville Predators to Marner. He knows what’s being said out there.

But as he said Tuesday, and has been confirmed by other league sources, the Predators and Toronto Maple Leafs haven’t talked about a Marner trade.

In fact, the Leafs as of Tuesday hadn’t talked to a single team regarding a Marner trade.

And I suppose this is where we add “yet.”

Leafs GM Brad Treliving has been solely focused on his coaching decision and process and hiring, and now that Craig Berube is in place, there are scouting meetings this week for the Leafs front office.

But yes, at some point we might start to hear legitimate speculation about the conversations Treliving is having around the league. That normally heats up closer to the draft in late June in Vegas.

Even then, there’s no guarantee anything happens with Marner this summer.

This isn’t currently a situation like with Matthew Tkachuk two years ago, when Tkachuk’s camp presented Treliving, then the Calgary Flames’ GM, with a list of five or six teams he would accept a trade to, which led to a Florida Panthers–Carolina Hurricanes battle for Tkachuk, and you know the rest of it.

At this point, the Marner camp led by veteran agent Darren Ferris is not working on a list of teams. They have no intention as of now of producing such a list. As far as the Marner camp is concerned, the star winger has one more year on his contract with the Leafs and intends to honor it.

So as far as I can tell right this minute, this is all about what the Leafs come to Marner with this summer (if anything) — not the other way around.

Marner holds most of the cards with his 100 percent no-move clause, which went into effect last July 1.

And whatever happens or doesn’t happen on the Marner front, just remember that last June — not this June — would have been the more logical window to hold a true bidding war on No. 16 if that’s something the Leafs wanted to do.

But the dramatic divorce between Kyle Dubas and Brendan Shanahan made that not the focus at the time. I don’t care what anyone says, there isn’t a GM alive who, after being hired in late May like Treliving was, would have felt comfortable trading away a young, core, star player a couple of weeks into his tenure. Of course, Treliving’s natural inclination was to want to get to know Marner and feel out this whole Core 4 situation in his first season as GM. That’s a reasonable course of action.

Except that July 1 came and went last year and well, now, again, Marner holds most if not all of the cards.

The only way a Marner bidding war would have happened last June is if Shanahan made it Treliving’s top priority upon getting hired and, well, we know that wasn’t the case.

So here we are. The rumors are already in full force. Somehow the Marner to Nashville rumour has become a “thing.” Even though the teams haven’t talked.

But one can understand the theoretical sense of it all.

On the surface, it makes sense from the point of view that the Predators want to upgrade offensively if they can this summer.

The fly in the ointment: Any team that approaches the Leafs this summer about a Marner trade isn’t doing so without knowing it can sign him to an extension as part of the deal. It would be beyond stunning if a single team was willing to propose a trade with Marner signed for just 12 months before becoming an unrestricted free agent.

Back to Nashville for one moment. Filip Forsberg makes $8.5 million per season and is coming off a 48-goal, 94-point campaign. Marner makes $10.9 million and is coming off a 26-goal, 85-point regular season, albeit in 69 games.

They’re both great players. But what I’m pointing out is the Predators’ carefully curated cap culture, where the top earner is perennial Norris Trophy contender Roman Josi at $9.059 million.

So for starters, if we want to entertain ourselves and see this Marner-to-Nashville theoretical trade actually have legs, one has to imagine he would be willing to take a pay cut as part of an extension to fit into the Nashville picture. And I mean, Nashville is one of those markets with no state income tax, so who knows I guess? But it seems … unlikely?

Listen, I get the Nashville speculation as fun game theory. The Predators need offense, and they might be willing to take bids on star goalie Juuse Saros (who also has one year left on his deal) with 2020 first-round pick Yaroslav Askarov having put in two full seasons in AHL Milwaukee and seemingly ready to make the jump.

A Saros-Joseph Woll duo in net in Toronto is a sexy thought. And I do believe it’s very much true that the Leafs want to go big-game hunting to find an upper-echelon goalie to help out the young Woll. Does Treliving try to rekindle things with Jacob Markstrom from Calgary? It wouldn’t surprise me.

Of course, there’s also a world in which the Predators keep Saros. My understanding is that Trotz’s current plan is to try to sign Saros to an extension if he can make the money work. There is always a world in which Saros and Askarov share the net for a while, no different than how a young Saros shared the net with veteran franchise goalie Pekka Rinne for five seasons.

If talks with Saros don’t go well … that’s where it gets interesting.

So again, you get why the Nashville ideas began when it comes to Marner and Toronto.

But I go back to what a Marner extension would look like and struggle to fit that into the Predators’ cap culture.

And why does Marner have to sign an extension with any team, even Toronto, this summer? William Nylander didn’t sign his extension until January this year. It’s Marner’s right, too, to wait this out if he wants. He’s negotiated that right. No one should begrudge him that if that were indeed to happen. Mats Sundin on Line 1.

There is no guarantee Marner is going anywhere. My sense at the moment is that the Leafs front office hasn’t committed to trading Marner, and again, he holds the cards if the team does want to go that direction.

That doesn’t mean it won’t happen, of course. A lot of that will depend on teams calling and what those teams are willing to offer.

In any case, the Marner story has the potential to take several different paths, and it’s early to see which path is most likely. Not that that ever stops anyone from asking questions in silly season.

(Photo: Nick Turchiaro / USA Today)

Pierre LeBrun has been a senior NHL columnist for The Athletic since 2017. He has been an NHL Insider for TSN since 2011 following six years as a panelist on Hockey Night In Canada. He also appears regularly on RDS in Montreal. Pierre previously covered the NHL for ESPN.com and The Canadian Press. Follow Pierre on Twitter @PierreVLeBrun