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“I can confirm that Mitch Marner will not be back in Toronto.”
Félix Forget
“I can confirm that Mitch Marner will not be back in Toronto.”
Credit: Getty Images
In less than three weeks, the NHL free-agent market will open. And unsurprisingly, the name that’s got everyone talking is Mitch Marner.

It’s rare for a player of this calibre to become a free agent, after all.

The big question, then, is where the forward will play next year. Just about everyone expects him to go south of the border… but there was still a possibility of him returning to Toronto.

It wasn’t huge, of course… but now it’s even smaller.

Andy Strickland, who’s pretty well connected in the hockey world, posted a piece of information about Marner this afternoon: he says he can “confirm” that Marner won’t be back with the Maple Leafs next year.

He will therefore be playing for a new team.

It’s important to note, however, that this doesn’t automatically mean he won’t sign his next contract with the Maple Leafs. It is possible, for example, that Marner could sign an eight-year contract with the Maple Leafs (because unless his rights are traded by July 1, only the Leafs can offer him an eighth-year contract) before being immediately traded.

This is commonly known as a “sign-and-trade”.

For the Leafs, it would allow the team to pick up something… while for Marner, it would allow him to pick up an eighth-year contract while trading his uniform for that of another team.

That said, this is more of a technicality than anything else: the bottom line is that by 2025-26, Marner will no longer be wearing the Maple Leafs’ colors. There are a ton of teams eyeing him, and we’ll see which one he chooses.

And for the Leafs, the important thing now will be to try to “replace” Marner… but that’s a lot easier said than done.


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