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Breaking: Golden Knights Eyeing Blockbuster Trade for Mitch Marner – Is a Deal…
Toronto Forward Mitch Marner’s future is unclear heading into this off-season. Do the Vegas Golden Knights have the pieces and cap flexibility to get a deal done?
When star players in the NHL become available via trade or in Unrestricted Free Agency, the Vegas Golden Knights always find a way to be in the mix to acquire said player, no matter how their salary cap situation is at the time.
Over the last few years the Knights have acquired the likes of Mark Stone, Jack Eichel, Alex Pietrangelo, Tomas Hertl and Noah Hanifin. Now here we are this off-season and the top name amongst every trade target board is Toronto Maple Leafs forward Mitch Marner.
After losing in the 1st Round of the playoffs once again at the hands of the Boston Bruins, the Maple Leafs are finally expected to possibly break up their “core four” of Auston Matthews, John Tavares, William Nylander and Mitch Marner. The aforementioned foursome have been together since the 2018-2019 season and have only advanced past the 1st round of the playoffs once out of six post-season appearances.
Now, Leafs GM Brad Treliving is tasked with making the decision of whether or not to make significant changes to his roster. Most of that talk surrounds the 27 year-old Markham, Ont native in Marner.
Marner however, holds the cards as he has a full NMC, controlling his future. While Marner has maintained he wants to stay in Toronto that hasn’t stopped the speculation of him being moved.
Last week Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported that if Marner does in fact become available that “A lot of people suspect that Vegas will be around it.” With that said, let’s take a look of how a Marner trade to the Knights could look like.
As this off-season begins, the Knights are set to have $6.197M of cap space for GM Kelly McCrimmon to work around with goaltender Robin Lehner on LTIR. With Mitch Marner’s $10.9M cap hit, Vegas would have send back a decent amount of salary to make the deal work.
With forwards Mark Stone, Jack Eichel, Tomas Hertl and William Karlsson going nowhere and same for defenseman Alex Pietrangelo, one player with a a elevated cap hit that Toronto could have interest in as the center piece of a deal for Marner would be defenseman Shea Theodore. Theodore has 1 year remaining on his contract carrying a cap hit of $5.2M.
The Maple Leafs the last few seasons haven’t had much higher end skill on the backend behind their #1 defenseman in Morgan Rielly. Adding Theodore to the Leafs backend would provide the Leafs with another strong puck mover who can transition the puck up ice and take some pressure off Rielly.
Aside from Theodore, more salary would have to go back the other way to Toronto to balance out the cap for Vegas. One candidate that could also be of interest to Toronto is forward Nicolas Roy. Roy, 27, has 3 years remaining on his contract with a cap hit of $3M.
Last season Roy posted a career high of 41 pts in only 70 games, scoring 14 goals for Vegas. Adding Roy would give the Leafs some more balance in their lineup and would add an element that has alluded the Leafs in prior seasons, which is having forwards who can produce points but also be responsible defensively and bring sandpaper to the game.
Theodore and Roy likely is not enough to get the deal done for Marner but if the Knights threw their 2024 1st into the deal that could be the attractive makings of an offer for the Leafs. If this hypothetical trade went through, the Knights would be left with $3.494 of cap space with a roster of 11F, 7D and 2G.
While it would be tight, the thought of Mitch Marner playing with center Jack Eichel on Vegas’s top line is tantalizing and could ultimately help the Knights get back to the Stanley Cup Final for the 2nd time in 3 seasons.
It is important to note that this trade would likely result in original Golden Knight in Jonathan Marchessault to depart in free agency, as well as UFA forward Chandler Stephenson and Anthony Mantha, who was already reportedly to be moving on.
While Mitch Marner very well may not be moved due to his NMC, and the Golden Knights cap situation being complicated you can never count out the Knights when it comes to acquiring star players, because as history has shown, the house always wins.
