What a Mitch Marner contract extension could look like

Let’s set aside our personal feelings on Mitch Marner and whether he should be traded or not. Whether he’s a playoff performer or not. Whether he is interested in re-signing or not and if the Leafs are interested in re-signing him. We’re just going to assume that a 30-goal, 90-point winger who has been a part of the franchise since the 2015 draft is someone the Maple Leafs want to keep and that Marner is interested in playing for his hometown team throughout his career and that there is interest in getting a deal done.

Given that this is the final days of CapFriendly being public, it seems like the best time to dive into what is reasonable and unreasonable for Mitch Marner to ask for and then, in all reality, figure out how far into the unreasonable the Leafs should venture before saying “no thanks.” I’d like to say I’ll come at this from a completely unbiased perspective, but I am of the opinion that Marner’s last contract was very much in the land of unreasonable and that context needs to be considered when talking about what will happen in the next 12 months.

More than dollar amounts, cap hits seem to be governed by cap percentages, at least on the Leafs. Toronto has fallen into a habit of paying their stars around 13-14% of the cap per star player, with Matthews now climbing up over 15%. It certainly eliminates any hope that the Maple Leafs will ever get a team friendly deal through the negotiations but in a rising cap world there is some hope that the contracts will eventually look better over time rather than the beginning to end disappointment the Leafs faced with the last Marner contract.

If these numbers seem high, it’s because they are, but they aren’t out of line with what the NHL has typically compensated star players with and as much to continue to kick rocks on how much Marner costs and how much he’s going to cost it’s very much in the range of what he should be getting. The issue/debate that needs to be had is whether the Leafs have too many players in that range in the first place and given the results they’ve achieved; evidence points to trying something different in the future (and Tavares’ next contract will allow for that naturally in a year.)

Again, your personal feelings about Marner’s contract and playoff performance aside, what seems reasonable for Mitch from a percentage standpoint? I’m guessing he’ll push for a bigger slice of the pie than Nylander, and he’ll probably try to use that Panarin comparison to his advantage. The Leafs will likely lean into the Nylander one, citing the cap going up again next season and ultimately the deal that will be struck will probably align with the Elias Pettersson percentage. At the present salary cap of $88M, that would pay Marner $12.223M. That’s a nice little raise but it still doesn’t seem like a number the Leafs and Marner get to easily.

From the Leafs perspective I can see the push to see if Marner wants to remain a Leaf. A bit of pressure that if the Leafs are going to do more, they need him to take less. There could be a hardline drawn on the Nylander contract number.

On the Marner side of things he will make more than what the Leafs will offer him if he reaches free agency. Both the Panarin and Tavares contracts show that testing the market is the way to go, even if it isn’t all about the money. There will always be a contending team that will pay a price higher than the incumbent. Assuming that the Panarin contract is the template for Marner and that the salary cap is capable of rising by another $5M next season, the Marner asking price could be $13.3M or essentially Auston Matthews territory. I’d imagine if that’s the money Marner wants he’ll find it somewhere.

The Evolving Hockey contract projection model has Mitch Marner projected at $11.7M based on an $88M salary cap. That number jumps to $12.41M if the salary cap is assumed to be $93M next season.

There is also the double-edged sword of Marner’s three key comparable players that are also due for extensions at this point. Mikko Rantanen is the likely the closest to Marner and is presently on a $9.25M AAV deal that took up 11.35% of Colorado’s cap space when it was signed. While Evolving Hockey’s projections see Rantanen making more than Marner and potentially being a higher comparable, it seems far more likely that the Avs will be able to use the Pastrnak and Pettersson deals to their advantage.

The big one that the Marner camp is going to be looking to is Leon Draisaitl. Offensively, Mitch Marner is not Leon Draisaitl who is a centre and perennial 100+ point scorer. While Marner closes some of the gap with his defensive game, there is also a night and day difference in playoff outputs (damn, I swore I wasn’t going to bring the playoffs into this.) Anyway, if Marner is looking for a Draisaitl deal he’ll probably have to do it elsewhere, but if Draisaitl takes a shave on percentage of the cap or looks like he’s taking less so the Oilers can do more, there might be some benefit to using Leon as a comparator for Marner.

Sidney Crosby is a bit of a stretch as a comparator for Marner, as age, legacy, and desire to either win once more in Pittsburgh or somewhere else will likely dominate his decision making process. Still, there is no doubt that Crosby is still delivering at a high level and his 2023-24 numbers dwarfed Marner’s. Even though Crosby’s $8.7M AAV is a bargain today, it did take up 14.5% of the Penguins’ cap space at the time. His $8.7M AAC on the deal before that took up 17.3%. If you had to guess what Crosby’s next extension will come in at, it will probably be an $8.7M AAV and that is a steal, but from a narrative perspective having Crosby take less to do more at a time when Marner is negotiating his deal could sway opinion towards the Leafs in the contract talks.

In contract talks it can seem bizarre to be rooting for MLSE and by extension Rogers and Bell to save money. I’ve often wondered if this is one of the things that makes negotiating with the Leafs easier as agents know the owner has the money and it’s not a single or small group of individuals at the top who show they want to win as bad as the players do. I’m not sure how much any of that matters but the bottomless pockets of MLSE don’t work as well in the on-ice world as they do with building out the hockey operations department.

As much as Mitch Marner will likely further become the villain in Toronto through the negotiation process, he is an incredible talent and has every right to go after what he’s worth or what he believes he’s worth. It’s just a bit more complicated this time around because Toronto wouldn’t be wrong to have a walkaway number. My opinion on that walkaway number is that it should be $12.25M, the number that mirrors the Pettersson contract in the current cap environment and just under what Evolving Hockey projects Marner should get in a $93M salary cap world.

Somethings are subject to change. Marner’s camp has already expressed a desire to playout the 2024-25 season before figuring out what they’ll do next. That is subject to change. Mitch Marner could also have a true contract year performance and things like Selke consideration or breaking the 100-point barrier would have a positive impact for him and could open up the MLSE wallet a bit further. Of course, the thing that everyone wants to see and what the true gamechanger is for Marner is a breakout playoff performance. If that comes to fruition all bets are off for what he can earn.

Data from Capfriendly and Evolving Hockey

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