This works for Toronto, but no one else. Marner's not waiving his NMC to go to Chicago while they are still rebuilding, and RENTAL Marner isn't worth 2nd OA. I'd be cautious moving a mid 1st for Marner, you wand 2 OA? Chicago fans are going to be ruthless with this

Why would CHI slow their rebuild and get an 11mil expiring UFA?

Its not a bad offer but I just dont see CHI doing it, their window is not within Marner's remaining year, and they probably dont really want to think about a 13+mil re-sign.

If you took a later in the first pick and a big contract back like Seth Jones is more realistic for what CHI might do

Easy decline for Chicago.

Just get ready for Hawks fans

2OA for a 1 year rental isn't happening. Easy decline for CHI.

Even if Marner had an extension, Chicago still declines. Think of it this way; Demidov (RWer also) cost controlled and perfectly aligned with the rebuild, or Marner (extended) with the next 3 seasons of him wasted while having to swallow $13M or so in cap hit.

I doubting Marner waives or any team wants to offer Marner an extension but let's say a trade is made
As a Leaf, I would be happy just getting 11m in cap before July 1st so i can spend 11m on UFAs. Having two UFA sign for 6m for 3 years, IMO is a lot better than one 11m Marner for one year
So the return on a Marner trade.....really isn't that important, it's spending "his cap" wisely.

Marner isn't worth a 2OA pick even with an extension in place, honestly.

Woudnt trade 2oa even with an extension in place. Its a nonstarter for me.

As they should be! This is atrocious!

Well, I think this would be a rapid acceleration of their rebuild as opposed to slowing due to Marners age and expected contribution over term. They’d still have futures to maintain a healthy base, but they’d be expecting 8 great years out of marner.

Bedard is the rare 18 year old who’s nhl ready. Likely consideration that the 2OA will be 2-4 years out if D, 1-2 if forward. A delayed contribution similar to Kakko and bedard is waiting 4 years for an impact.

I don’t think Chicago should keep bedard in an extreme losing environment for 2-3 years. I think they should try to get him into a solid competitive environment asap (not contender necessarily, just not super doorstop), with as little damage to building around him as possible. Marner is a solid choice because of marners productivity with Matthews, clean injury history. Sending just 1 asset away means whatever plan can mostly stay in place. If they were to negotiate some deal with other pieces I feel everybodies plans would all be screwed up because of complexity.

But why does it HAVE to be Marner? It doesn't. He's a fine option, but there are plenty of options out there. AND since when is TOR rebuilding? You're saying 2-4 years out. Since when is TOR cool with waiting 2-4 years to be Cup Contenders. It really just doesn't make any sense for either CHI or Marner. I 100% understand why TOR wants to do it. They're making out like bandits! Makes no sense at all from the CHI point of view.

You make some solid points, but Marner still isn't worth our 2nd overall pick and I still don't think CHI even considers this. He slows the rebuild precisely because he makes us better. CHI has WAY too much work to do on their prospect pipeline to be a mid team right now picking in that "almost playoff team" area of the draft, while already having given up a 2nd overall pick for him. We don't have enough on the way to do this. Also, I would not bet on 8 great years of Marner. He would be 28 years old going into the first year of that 8 year contract. I'd expect most of that to be squandered in a rebuild, and him to be in decline and considered "overpaid" by the time CHI is truly ready. So not only is he not worth that much, but it doesn't make any sense for CHI in the short or long term. As an example, a large part of what made Hagel so valuable was his contract and being under RFA control. An aging pending UFA with a full NMC who already has a giant contract and will be expecting a raise with term, doesn't have those great selling points.

I also don't think we are anywhere near the point yet where we are "letting down Bedard" by not buying a bunch of players and being a contender. There is no reason to do that. Most highly touted players come into the league on very bad rebuilding teams, and they just have to keep working on themselves and wait like anyone else. He is going to be fine. If we don't have an elite playmaker/goal-scorer by the first season of his second contract, I might start to worry. But him not having that through his ELC, should be expected. The thing is, he already has Kurashev and should have Demidov, Nazar, Lardis, Moore, or whoever else pops and finds chemistry with him, by the 25-26 season, plus whoever we bring in as a stopgap, which could be lots of very good older veterans that shouldn't cost us valuable assets, and that should be more than enough. CHI is not rushing the rebuild. End of story.

If we were a team like ANA, DET, BUF, MTL, or OTT, who have most of their pieces in place and are trying to end their rebuilds and be true playoff teams, I might say "this year was a fluke. There is no reason we should have been this low in the standings. The rebuild is done. We don't need more prospects, we need to win." But that definitely isn't where CHI is, right now, and by the time CHI is there, Marner will be on the wrong side of 30.

I think from Torontos perspective, it’s kind of a sellers market.

Arizona has gone the last decade gobbling up the leagues waste, but it’s sensical to believe the rumors that they will add to the team in Utah. They actually have to: they won’t have the contracts to sign the picks they have and will make. They literally have to offload picks.

Additionally, this is the first time in a very long time contending teams have cap space. All these teams have been slammed to the cap for 5 years. The flexibility will not be used by all, but it gives more buying power to contenders than they have had in a long time.

So there’s gonna be buyers. Who is for sale? Would you rather Marner or Zegras? Marner or Necas?

In My Opinion:

As a sellers market, Marner is the best available asset. By a lot. If everybody available were put into tiers, he has his own tier at the top. There are obviously complexities given his NMC and the understanding that he’s going to sign 8 years if he goes somewhere, and all that goes into that choice and stuff, but that doesn’t discount that he’s the single best asset you could get if you were buying. I’m assuming Marner would be okay with a core of him and Bedard. The second best choice motivates the price: Toronto can leverage their ownership of the best available asset - the drop off to the second best - to get a fair value despite the unbalanced situation.

Toronto wouldn’t be rebuilding. See: Lafreniere. They’d go to market with cap space, secure a guy like domi for term, strengthen defense, etc. Could even trade their existing first or draft it and trade it at the deadline aka Vegas. They’d use the pick because it’s timed nicely for contribution with Matthews, Nylander, Domi, Knies down the road. They’re good enough to contend with that asset developing 2-4 years. Gives them a second wave of sorts.

The Rangers and stars have shown the way.

Really the cleanliness of the ordeal is what is attractive to me. 95%+ of existing plans can stay. Liability is super low considering the magnitude. There isn’t a whole lot to regret for either side here. The cap space is valuable enough to offset a busted draft pick, and Chicago has nobody else to give money to, gets somebody with a lot of good hockey left, better than any other choice on the market, who doesn’t have some hidden clause like “surprise I’m always injured”. Players like Marner are only traded if there’s baggage. The baggage in this case is that Toronto has too many guys at the same age that are good and also forwards, and marners term being last made him the odd one out.

I guess I simply don't see things the way you do. Your viewpoints (from an outsider's perspective) are bias and rosy towards TOR. I'm not a TOR fan, but did and will still cheer for them to win a cup if the Blackhawks can't win. I root for the underdog most of the time and it's been way too long for TOR fans. I feel for them because my Cubs took over 100 years to win a world series. It would be good for hockey if the Leafs won one.

It's not a sellers market when the asset you're trying to trade away has a full NMC. Just look at Patrick Kane. He got a whopping 2nd round pick and the Hawks needed to find double retention. I do agree (somewhat) with your assessment on Utah. I think they would like to make a splash, BUT they most definitely don't have to literally offload picks. Doesn't mean Utah isn't a good fit...I think it is a good fit...probably the best fit to be fair, but they can just draft guys and not sign them yet to contracts. They don't have most of their 2023 1st round picks under contract yet and Shimashev/But aren't even available for another year either.

You're also missing a lot on the "who is for sale?". What about all the UFAs out there? From the Blackhawks perspective specifically...Patrick Kane seems like a much better option on a short term deal than Mitch Marner. We get elite talent and don't have to give up any assets. He still has his home here. Hawks fans mostly agree that this would be a better route than trading for Marner.

Either way, good conversation! Cheers!

I have a better chance of playing right wing with Bedard next year for the Hawks vs this trade happening. In what world would this make sense for the Hawks?

I think a challenge for the hawks is that Bedard is way ahead of the curve. Ideally, they would have waited another year or two before drafting him while some further defensive and core seeds were planted/tended.

There will most likely be a normal delay in any draft pick from this class helping the team. I don’t think you’d want to keep Bedard in an uncompetitive environment as he develops his nhl game. I don’t think you’d want to wait for some impact from this pick considering the wait is measured in years. If you consider who you could add to the team the coming years, I’m not sure there’s a better target. Perhaps there is. Ideally Mitch would be 24 or 25 but you can only add from what’s available, and he’s 26, so it isn’t like woah.

If a deal like this occurred, the hawks would still have Tampa’s pretty okay first, it’s own second which is way up there, and 2 firsts next season, so they’d still have the ability to develop a wave of talent. They’d just pull one asset forward.

I understand what you're saying re: Bedard needs better talent around him.
However there's a better chance the Hawks trade their 2025 1st rounder for Marner if that trade was to happen. They aren't trading their 2nd OA pick this year. One could argue the 2nd rounder is a lot more valuable over Marner. Marner is going to cost the Hawks over 12,000,000 in cap space on a resign.

Well, as far as the compensation for skaters like Marner:

The hard salary cap makes it so that these elite performers are not paid what their contribution is - they all would get more in a free market. If you compare offensive rate metrics and aav, nearly all these guys outperform the average in terms of dollars for performance despite their higher pay.

But money aside, each team only has 4 top 6 winger slots. They’re guaranteed to be filled by somebody. The quality of the somebodies drives your teams competitive position.

If you can secure a top 10 winger in the nhl for 8 years, most other teams are jealous and at a disadvantage in that specific area. They’re still all paying 4 top 6 wingers, but most all of them are worse than the one you hypothetically have. There’s a small handful league wide that are better than Marner is projected to be the years 27-35. Perhaps 5 wingers will be better? Out of 32 x 4 wingers.

Marners expected performance and the stability provided to Bedard and the team in general is worth double the aav IMO. It’s something that’s so rarely for sale that it is near priceless. We’d all trade for McDavid, Pasta, Matt Tkachuk, Drai, Crosby, MacKinnon if they were available. We wouldn’t care about how much money they got.

There are arguments to make regarding the team composition and playstyle of each player, and in this case with Bedard and Matthew’s similarity, I think it’s positive - marner likes puck possession and rush offense, the two things Bedard likes, marner likes to pass more than shoot, Bedard likes to shoot more than pass, but the ability to acquire a top 10 winger (that doesn’t have some crazy drawback like major addiction problem or massive injury history) is so rare that things like the future AAV don’t matter, as long as it fits in the planned cost structure - in Chicago’s case, their 10 year plan is wide open and depends on future performance.

A team may wait 10-20 years for the opportunity to consider acquiring a player of this caliber. The only reason Toronto is ejecting him is because they have too many elite performers at the same age. That’s a problem Chicago will have if they focus their entire core future on a 2-3 year draft window, eventually having to be like Toronto and eject an elite player at a good age because there’s too much density of performance by birthdate.

A guy like marners aav looks gross year 1, but in a normal “cap goin up” environment, the tail of the term is discounted, which allows for healthy team building when staggered.