Mitch Marner is a lock to get the biggest free agent contract of the NHL offseason.
The only question: Exactly how much money is the Toronto Maple Leafs star going to get, and will it come from Toronto or somewhere else?
The Athletic’s NHL reporter James Mirtle sees one team in particular planning to break the bank for Marner: the Ducks.
“Some of the chatter is that they’ll potentially be the high bidder for Mitch Marner, with an unheard-of average annual value north of the $14 million that the Oilers’ Leon Draisaitl currently makes as the NHL’s highest-paid player,” Mirtle writes.
Marner is a two-way star, and with the rising salary cap, him getting $15 million per year to break Draisaitl’s record is a serious possibility.
The odds of that are even higher given Marner’s standing in a free agent pool that doesn’t have another player even close to like him. The bidding war among many teams will be intense.
The Ducks are a team on the rise, having gained 21 points in the standings from 2023-24 to 2024-25. Signing Marner would be a signal of intent to do even bigger things.
Because Marner will have so many suitors, it’ll probably come down to his personal preference. The money will be a lot wherever he goes. At the end of the day, Marner will have to decide for which team he actually wants to play hockey.
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