The Nashville Predators have been linked to Mitch Marner since the Leafs' off-season began with Barry Trotz even saying 'they're just rumours' at his end-of-season press conference. However, yesterday, Sportsnet's Nick Kypreos revealed that former Leaf Ryan O'Reilly had been in communication with Trotz trying to convince him to trade for Marner before they spent big in free agency signing Brady Skjei, Steven Stamkos and Jonathan Marchessault.
Entering the final year of his contract, Marner is due to make $10.9M and was paid a $7.25M signing bonus on July 1st, Marner has stated he intends to play out the final season of his deal with the Leafs and that his plan is to be a Leaf long-term.
Although Leaf fans may not be happy about it, the depth on the wings for the Leafs, particularly the left side is not great and trading Marner, unless it is for a considerable return would weaken the Leafs' top-six significantly more as they have already lost Tyler Bertuzzi to the Chicago Blackhawks.
