NHL Rumors: Mitch Marner and the Toronto Maple Leafs

Sportsnet: Nick Kypreos, Justin Bourne and Sam McKee talk about the potential landing spots for Toronto Maple Leafs pending UFA Mitch Marner. Could Mitch Marner pick a team to spite the Leafs? What are some options?

** NHLRumors.com transcription

Bourne: “Mitch Marner, next team odds.”

McKee: “Love this combo.”

Bourne: “Power ranking of potential. I believe the one I saw had it, Carolina, Toronto.”

McKee: “Carolina?”

Bourne: “I know. Utah. What was it, Detroit? I don’t know. What do you got? Colorado’s the most common one I hear.”

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Kypreos: “That one would be interesting to me, because they kind of drew the line on no one passing Nate (MacKinnon). And, you know, I and maybe he, he’ll go there for 12, I don’t know. I mean, there’s so many factors, including.”

Bourne: “If I’m Nate, I’m like, ‘Guys, move on. We need good players. Don’t worry about me.’”

Kypreos: “Yes.”

Bourne: “Get the good player.”

McKee: “We just saw the guy that you weren’t going to pay a little bit more than me, stab a dagger into my heart.”

Bourne: “Current Conn Smyth favorite.”

McKee: “With a hat trick in the third period of game seven against us.”

Bourne: “Yeah, get the good guy.”

Kypreos: “And I, I get a lot of this comments from people with, you know, who’s had enough of Mitch Marner, where it’s like, ‘good luck in Buffalo, or good luck in Chicago, because that’s where you’re going to go.’ And it’s like, no, no, that’s not where he’s going to have to go. And there’s going to be some teams that are going to be willing to move money out to make room for him. And I would say that there’s probably legit 15 to 20 teams that would be willing to, to find the room to sign Mitch Marner.”

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Bourne: “There should be 30.”

McKee: “Can I ask you a question, Kipper?”

Kypreos: “Yeah. Maybe I’m, maybe I’m underestimating it.”

Bourne: “There should be.”

McKee: “Can I ask you an honest question? How much of the FU factor will there be with him in choosing a destination? How, is there a resentment with his camp towards the Toronto Maple Leafs, and would that have any determination in a possible destination? Basically, I’m asking you, is he gonna sign in Boston?”

Kypreos: “Please. Please. Give me, Oh, so you’re saying, would I just pick a team to spite my former team? Would that?”

McKee: “Would that play into the decision at all?”

Kypreos: “No, okay, nobody would ever do that. There’s, there’s family, there’s consideration, there’ll be consideration, on, on, can I win here? Do I like what I’m hearing? Are they saying all the right things? Can I take a visit? Can I go see neighborhoods? That’s what happens. This time of year.”

McKee: “Okay. Im just picking your brain on that one.”

Bourne: “I do think him just having a baby for the first time, you know, I think that, you know, it’s unlikely that he flees to Anaheim with the child. And you know, the family’s like, it seems like they’re a close family. I don’t know personally, but it seems like they are. I imagine being relatively close, East Coast, Detroit, Buffalo, I don’t know, something like that would …”

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McKee: “Detroit would make sense.”

Kypreos: “I think he’s open to, just if he’s looking for a fresh change in a new atmosphere, I think he’d be open to the Western Conference.”

McKee: “Colorado.”

Kypreos: “Colorado would make kind of sense, but it would have to be a different philosophy. They would not pay Rantanon, and now all of a sudden, do you, do you turn around to your fan base and say, ‘We’re kind of wrong. We didn’t want to pay Rantanen, but we’re going to get Mitch Marner.”

Bourne: “They got rid of the playoff mule. Check out this guy who we paid.”

McKee: “Imagine he took less in Colorado. He’s like, I want to take less to be a part of…”

Kypreos: “The one thing that’s very much different than Willie Nylander is that Willie was always about a number, and the money. You hit the number, I’m signing. That wasn’t the case with Mitch Marner. It wasn’t just about the money. And that, that’s why he made.”

Bourne: “It had seem that way up to now.”

Kypreos: “He may, but if you read, if you read the tea leaves, they really wanted to sign him, and he did not reciprocate.”

McKee: “I mean, I think that’s why they tried to trade him.”

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Kypreos: “Yes, because they knew. now, at this point, if we’re offering him really good money here, and he doesn’t want the eighth year that everybody else can only offer the seventh, and this guy’s just looking for a fresh change.”

Bourne: “Yep.”

McKee: “Yeah. I think it’ll tell you a lot about, the destination will tell you a lot about his…”

Bourne: “The one thing is that you talk to it’s really hard in today’s NHL to pick who is a good team with a long-term, good future. We said going into the playoffs, 11 teams could win the Stanley Cup.”

McKee: “Yeah.”

Bourne: “Like, it’s tough. You know, we sit there and go, who’s going to be good? Make our prediction start of the year. You’re picking a team based on who you think is gonna be good. It’s pretty risky. You gotta have some, I like, this location, this organization, this yada, yada.”

Kypreos: “So by chance, he does pick, like, Montreal, like, you’re gonna freak right out.”

McKee: “No, I’m really not.”

Bourne: “Oh my god, if he picked the Canadians, you wouldn’t freak out? Grow up. Know yourself a little bit.”

Kypreos: “That would be hilarious.”

McKee: “I, I don’t think would pick Montreal, would he?”

Bourne: “That would be, he would get the Tavares on Long Island treatment in Toronto.”

Kypreos: “That’s only a question I think he could answer right now. No idea.”

McKee: “I don’t know how I feel about that.”

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Kypreos: “Free agency is free agency. It’s, it’s, it’s very seldom guys like run it. When it’s all said and done, when you, when they’re dangling $90 to $100 million in front of you, and you turn it down, and you still could go out there and get clipped in the eye, hit your head, and it could change tomorrow on you. Like that is, that’s one ballsy move.”

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