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With the free agent market nearly void of options two weeks into July, the Toronto Maple Leafs and the New York Rangers find themselves in similar positions with the remaining needs on their rosters for the 2024-25 season.
The Rangers are still looking for a top-line right winger to support Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad. The Maple Leafs lack depth in their defense corps while having a surplus of forwards.
Coincidentally, each team could be interested in moving a player that fits the other’s needs: right winger Mitch Marner of the Maple Leafs and right defenseman Jacob Trouba of the Rangers.
Heavy Sports‘ trade proposal swaps the two, giving New York the top-line forward they need in exchange for a defenseman who would slot nicely as a second-pair defenseman for the Leafs.
For this trade to happen, however, both players would need to accept the transaction. Marner has a full no-move clause baked into his contract for the 2023 and 2024 seasons. Meanwhile, Trouba has a 15-team no-trade list for the 2024 season, and he’d need to leave Toronto outside of it.
That said, both teams and players make for perfect salary and cap-space matches in the event of a trade. According to PuckPedia, a one-for-one trade would work for both franchises.
The Leafs would end up with $3.8 million in cap space and the Rangers would absorb the difference in the players’ salaries. New York has $5.1 million in cap space before completing the trade, more than enough to land Marner’s cap-hit difference.
Rangers Looking to Move on From Jacob Trouba
The Rangers asked Trouba for his 15-team no-trade list ahead of free agency, The Athletic’s Arthur Staple reported on June 27.
The Rangers and the Detroit Red Wings had a trade “in the works” during the draft weekend, Larry Brooks of the New York Post reported on June 29.
Emily Kaplan of ESPN reported on July 9 that Trouba blocked a trade to Detroit by including the Red Wings in his 15-team no-trade list.
“There was a deal in place with the Red Wings, I am told, and Jacob used the power he earned in his contract to block it, and that’s within his right,” Kaplan said while appearing on TSN’s Jay Onrait show.
Trouba scored 3 goals and 19 assists for 22 points in 69 regular-season games in 2024. Moreover, he added 1 goal and 6 assists in 16 postseason contests. Trouba has two years left on his seven-year, $56 million contract.
Staple and Peter Baugh listed the Maple Leafs as one of the top trade fits for Trouba.
“Big, right-shot defensemen like Trouba always entice teams. The Maple Leafs are going to be tight against the salary cap, but perhaps they’d be interested,” they wrote in The Athletic on June 27. “They have a need on the right side.”
But Staple and Baugh wrote that “all seven north-of-the-border clubs could be on his no-trade list.”
Mitch Marner’s Days With Maple Leafs Could Be Numbered
Marner is entering the final season of his six-year, $65.4 million contract with the Maple Leafs, and there’s a lot of talk about what they will do next.
According to a July 12 report by Terry Koshan of the Toronto Sun, a Marner trade could happen by the second week of July.
“The word coming out of the NHL draft at the end of June in Las Vegas was that if—a big if—Mitch Marner was going to be traded, it would take some time to consummate and probably wouldn’t happen for a couple of weeks,” Koshan wrote. “We’re heading into that territory on the calendar now.”
Marner, on the other hand, has made clear he wants to sign an extension to stay in Toronto for the long term. He told that to media members during the end-of-season availability on May 6.
“That’d be a goal. I’ve expressed my love for this place, this city. Obviously, I’ve grown up here. We’ll start thinking about that now and trying to figure something out. … It means the world to me,” Marner said.
Leafs general manager Brad Treliving spoke to reporters at the NHL combine on June 3 and warned fans and reporters about the speculation surrounding Marner, Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic reported.
“The thing I would say is, be very, very careful of what you read out there,” Treliving said on June 3, via LeBrun, when asked about Marner’s ongoing speculation.
“Mitch is a hell of a player. We’re not going to comment on any players. We’re not going to do play-by-play on it,” Treliving said. “We’ve got to look at every possible way for our team to be better.”
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