Hockey

“If Mitch Marner leaves Toronto, he won’t want to play anywhere else in Canada.”
Félix Forget
“If Mitch Marner leaves Toronto, he won’t want to play anywhere else in Canada.”
Credit: Getty Images

Where will Mitch Marner play in 2025-26? That's one of the questions that will attract the most attention in the NHL over the next month.

The Maple Leafs forward, who will become a free agent on July 1, appears to be on his way out of Toronto. Seeing him booed in his final moments on the ice sent a strong message: fans want change.

And clearly, Marner can't be too keen to stay with the team in the face of such fan reaction.

It makes you wonder where Marner will be playing next year… and Anthony Di Marco(Daily Faceoff) chatted with a league executive about Marner.

And from what he could gather, the current feeling about Marner is pretty simple: if he's playing in Canada next year, it's because he'll have stayed in Toronto.

The (already very slim) chances of Marner landing in Montreal are starting to take a beating… and it makes sense: Marner is a Toronto kid who, if he doesn't stay with his long-time team, will probably want to go somewhere where he'll be far away from the pressure.

It's not for nothing that Vegas and Florida are recurring destinations for him.

And since the popular feeling is that Marner won't be back in Toronto(even if the club wants to sit down with him to talk about it), we can expect to see him head south of the border. Because, obviously, keeping him in Canada doesn't seem to be the most likely outcome.

Canadian teams will probably try to lure him away… but I really have a feeling that the next time he wears a Canadian team jersey, it'll be at the Olympics.


Overtime

– News from the Memorial Cup.

– Claude Giroux is negotiating with the Senators.

– The puck and stick from Alex Ovechkin's historic goal are in Russia.

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