Treliving comments reveal why Toronto Maple Leafs almost traded Mitch Marner
With the trade deadline having come and gone in the NHL, the Toronto Maple Leafs ended up making a few additions by way of centre Scott Laughton and defenceman Brandon Carlo.
But perhaps the biggest non-trade of the weekend was one involving Mitch Marner, who saw his name floated in a possible blockbuster deal for Mikko Rantanen, a rare star player who ended up being traded for the second time in one season.
According to multiple reports, the Leafs asked Marner to waive his no-trade clause after the Carolina Hurricanes shared their interest in him as a possible centrepiece for a Rantanen deal, to which the Toronto star winger declined. Marner is in the final year of a six-year deal with the Leafs and is slated to hit the free agent market this summer.
After less than two full months in Carolina, following coming over from the Colorado Avalanche, Rantanen was eventually flipped to the Dallas Stars, where he subsequently signed an eight-year contract worth US$96 million.
Toronto general manager Brad Treliving has had two media availabilities since Friday. While he didn’t divulge into specifics about the team possibly parting ways with Marner, it’s not that hard to read between the lines of what he did tell the media.
“We are aligned with Mitch. We are worried about this season, and we’re worried about the games we have coming up. We want to keep Mitch here for a long time,” Treliving said to a group of reporters on Sunday afternoon.
Clearly, the Leafs value Marner and intend to make signing him long-term a priority. But with Marner’s camp wishing to avoid contract negotiations during the season, Treliving explored the possibility of landing a player like Rantanen, who may have been more willing to sign a long-term deal.
But while he mostly danced around the reports, another answer of Treliving’s on Friday also seemed to explain his line of thinking. Though he was talking about defencemen in this instance, it’s an answer that also appears applicable to the team’s forward group, led by stars Marner, Auston Matthews, and William Nylander.
“Look, we were shopping in the rental market up until the deadline. We were shopping [around the NHL] last few days. But you always prefer [long-term deals], you pay a price, and you don’t like to see it walk out the door a few months later,” Treliving said Friday.
While Marner isn’t a true “rental” for the Leafs, given that he’s spent his whole career with the team, he remains a bit uncertain about his long-term future. Clearly, if the Leafs could’ve had a star player like Rantanen in exchange for Marner if the former was on a long-term deal, that would have been the main impetus behind possibly pulling the trigger on such a major move.
It seems to be a pretty simple situation, but it’s one the Leafs may have bungled, having the reports of the botched trade now leaked and Marner not interested in a move at this time. With the playoffs around the corner and free agency a little under four months away, we should finally have some clarity soon about whether Marner will actually stay in Toronto for his third contract.