Maple Leafs-Mitch Marner breakup watch: Why GM Brad Treliving is playing nice

New York Times

5 days ago

TORONTO — We appear to be at the stage of the breakup where everyone is playing nice and still sorting out exactly how this is going to go.
Brad Treliving certainly didn't use Thursday's end-of-season session with reporters to press the Toronto Maple Leafs' position on pending unrestricted free agent Mitch Marner, who appears set to walk away from his childhood team on July 1 with nothing coming back in return.
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The Leafs general manager repeatedly mentioned that Marner has a say in what happens, too, which is probably underselling the reality of the situation a touch. So far the star forward has used his CBA-afforded rights to play out his contract this season without entertaining negotiations on an extension and invoked his contractually negotiated rights to prevent a March trade with the Carolina Hurricanes that would have brought back Mikko Rantanen in return.
Given ample opportunity to publicly express his desire to remain in Toronto long term, including after a Game 7 loss to the Florida Panthers on May 18 and again following his exit meeting two days later, Marner steadfastly refused.
In fact, he spoke in the past tense.
Even if, after all of that, the 28-year-old somehow had a magical change of heart and wanted to continue representing the Leafs, there would need to be a serious debate at the management and ownership level about whether it was the right thing for the organization moving forward.
Marner has done absolutely nothing wrong by using the leverage afforded to him as a tenured NHL player with all-world credentials, but his approach to his expiring contract has unquestionably been disruptive and unsettling to the team as it enters a critical offseason.
As for where the Leafs front office sits today with regard to a 102-point contributor who is signalling an eagerness to test the open market, all Treliving would allow was that they're preparing for multiple potential outcomes and will face a difficult challenge in replacing Marner should it come to that.
'There's not a hockey tree out there that you just go and pluck the player off of,' he said.
Indeed, NHL players with Marner's ability seldom get to free agency during their primes and it basically never happens under circumstances like the ones present here.
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The late Johnny Gaudreau, for example, was anxious to move closer to family on the East Coast in 2022 when he walked away from Treliving's Calgary Flames to sign with the Columbus Blue Jackets. In 2019, Artemi Panarin decided to leave a Columbus team that had acquired him by trade for big-city life with the New York Rangers. And in 2018, John Tavares left a New York Islanders franchise that struggled to build a winner around him to join his hometown Maple Leafs.
In the case of Marner, he's poised not only to leave the city he was raised in and the team he grew up cheering for, but also a team fresh off a 108-point season that finished atop its division in the regular season before falling to the defending (and potentially repeat) Stanley Cup champions.
Of course, the Leafs have also been unable to parlay consistent regular-season success into anything more than two playoff series victories in nine years, building up an 0-6 record in Games 7 in the process — something Treliving acknowledged Thursday had left 'scars' on those who have experienced it.
Of all the things the veteran GM said during nearly 50 minutes in front of the microphones, the one answer he didn't give definitively was that he wanted Marner back.
'Now, Mitch has a say in this as well, so this isn't the world according to Brad,' Treliving said. 'I think he's a great player. He's been a great player here. We'll have to see. We'll have to see how this all works. Do I think Mitch can succeed? Yes I do. But, as I said before, we've all got to kind of take a step back and look at (things). We can't be rigid in our thought process and say we can only do something one way.'
That was the closest Treliving got to nodding at where this is all heading.
The Leafs GM still has incentive to keep things civil. There is potentially a world where he finds himself trading Marner's rights by July 1 and getting back something tangible in return.
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Of course, that would require the player to waive his no-movement clause, and TSN's Darren Dreger reported this week that Marner's camp views it as an unlikely option unless a perfect scenario presents itself.
Exhausting those options and finding a solution may offer Treliving the only small victory to be gained on this file before he starts figuring out how to alter his team's DNA with the additions made using Marner's vacated cap space.
Traditionally, returns have been marginal in sign-and-trade situations. The Carolina Hurricanes received a third-round draft pick from the Tampa Bay Lightning for Jake Guentzel's rights before he signed an eight-year deal with them last summer. But perhaps there could be something a little more tangible out there on the table for Toronto if it facilitated a maximum-term contract for Marner in a new city prior to free agency.
As the team's key decision-makers gather this week for pro scouting meetings, determining how things end with Marner and how to begin next season without him should be at the top of the agenda.
'We've got to kind of drive what we think is the best outcome,' Treliving said. '(If he decides to leave), and we'll see where this goes, I don't think you're just going out and saying 'OK, let's go get this player and he replaces Mitch.' Maybe that's where I talked about it we have to change a little bit, right, we have to change the makeup of the team.
'But that's speculation right now. That's hypotheticals that I don't like to necessarily get into.
'So, 'we'll see,' is the answer.'