This may all be moot if Mitch Marner decides he won’t go anywhere no matter what and the Toronto Maple Leafs front office decides not to push him on it.
However, if the Leafs do get to a place where a Marner trade is on the table, what exactly should they be looking for? What would a good Mitch Marner trade – or rather, a good Mitch Marner blockbuster – look like?
Weirdly, Maple Leafs GM Brad Treliving has been at the centre of two of the NHL’s bigger blockbusters in recent memory.
Back in the summer of 2018, Treliving’s Calgary Flames dealt 25-year-old fringe Norris Trophy contender Dougie Hamilton (along with Micheal Ferland and Adam Fox, the future Norris Trophy winner and then-prospect who wouldn’t sign with the Flames) and got back two former top-five picks, Elias Lindholm and Noah Hanifin, who hadn’t really popped yet in the NHL.
Hanifin was 21 and Lindholm was 23. Both were pending restricted free agents in need of new contracts.
All of it made the deal feel risky at the time. But the Treliving front office’s bet on upside was proven right.
Lindholm, making $4.85 million on the cap on a six-year deal signed shortly after the trade, grew into the Flames No. 1 centre. Hanifin, earning $4.95 million annually on the cap, also for six years, developed into a do-everything top-four defenceman.
