For the latest Leafs updates or Follow @mikeinbuffalo on Twitter The Toronto Maple Leafs and restricted free agent Mitch Marner continue to haggle over the perimeters of a new contract, and while it is likely that the two sides will eventually reach an agreement, GM Kyle Dubas and agent Darren Ferris are at this point speaking different languages.
According to James Mirtle’s piece in The Athletic on Friday, the two sides have exchanged offers, with the Marner camp looking for something close to Auston Matthews’ $11.634 Million salary on a five-year deal, the Leafs pitching an eight-year max contract for $10 Million per season, and Ferris countering with a three-year bridge deal at $10 Million AAV.
The initial deals are non-starters. The Marner camp does want a shorter deal that will enable the 22-year-old to get another payday in his mid-20’s and an eight-year deal would buy four years of unrestricted free agency and take him to age 30. Toronto does not want a contract the same length as Matthews, that would take three forwards (along with William Nylander) to unrestricted free agency in the same summer, as well as paying Marner more than the club’s top two centers.
What may drive the impasse into training camp and possibly the regular season is the Marner camp’s stance on a three-year bridge deal. Ideally, the Leafs want to get the two-time leading scorer locked up for as long as possible if they are going to venture into eight-figure territory, but would likely compromise on a shorter-term if there was a financial benefit.
A $10 Million AAV on a bridge deal would be more than $5 Million per season more than the highest-paid salary on that type of contract (Nikita Kucherov’s three-year deal for $4.73 Million per season in 2016 holds the record) and the whole purpose of a shorter-term is to exchange getting closer to unrestricted free agency for a lower AAV.
Ferris is resorting to the same playbook that he used with Andreas Athanasiou and Josh Anderson coming out of their ELC’s, which ended up having limited success for his clients. Athanasiou scored 18 goals in the final year of his contract and held out throughout camp, finally signing a one-year deal for $1.387 Million.
Anderson scored 17 goals in the last year of his ELC and sat through training camp before signing a three-year deal in early October for $1.85 Million per season.
Marner is a different level of player altogether since he has established himself as one of the top forwards in the NHL with 163 points in the last two seasons, but the end result of a compromise deal that occurred with Athanasiou and Anderson will likely be the end result with Toronto.
Dubas does not have a problem setting new precedent when it comes to contracts (the Matthews deal is proof of that) and the Leafs would likely go for a three-year bridge deal in the $7.5 Million to $9 Million range, but it is unlikely that Toronto would go so far of making Marner the second-highest-paid winger in the NHL behind Patrick Kane without the deal extending at least six years.
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