Quoting: RipNasty
What's Marner worth then?
The problem, to me, with trading someone like Marner is that there are so few deals that the Leafs would see acceptable. The only time you'd do a 1-for-1 deal is if he wanted out and you could manage to get another team to give up someone like a Matthew Tkachuk or David Pastrnak (bad examples because they're in-division, but I think you get the point I'm making value-wise.) If you're moving him to sell him, you're going to lose the trade - it's just the way those trades work. Every time you trade a dollar bill for quarters and dimes, you always wind up losing. The Jack Eichel trade comes to mind - sure, Buffalo got some very nice pieces coming back in a then-25-year-old Alex Tuch, a high value prospect in Peyton Krebs plus another 1st & 2nd - but Vegas got Jack Eichel, a PPG center who helped them win a Cup.
That being said, I think this type of deal is what you'd get if the Leafs decided they wanted to go ahead and move Marner. You have Clarke, a consensus top-10 prospect in the league; you have PLD being the Alex Tuch of the deal as a 25-year-old top 6 player, and the picks don't just match, they're better - a 1st, a 2nd, and an extra 2nd (without Toronto having to send back a 3rd the way the Sabres did.) I think the one change I'd make here is I'd take out PLD and swap in Quinton Byfield - if I'm the Leafs and I'm moving Marner, I'm presumably doing it for cap reasons and I'd rather not take back PLD's $8.5M AAV. Byfield hasn't reached the levels PLD has yet, so it's a bit more of a gamble, but I think it's a strong upside play.