Mitch Marner Landing Spots: Who Could Sign This Year’s Top Free Agent?

A consensus has been reached: Mitch Marner will probably not be a Toronto Maple Leaf as the 2025-26 NHL season begins. 

In Marner’s May 20 press conference after the end of the Leafs, he spoke almost exclusively in the past tense. 

“I’ve always loved my time here. I’ve loved being here,” Marner said. 

Additionally, more information has come out about the various unsuccessful attempts to sign him to an extension during the season and the subsequent attempts to trade him elsewhere. Marner exercised his no-trade clause to veto a deal that would’ve sent him to the Hurricanes and sent forward Mikko Rantanen to the Maple Leafs. 

So now, with a reunion in Toronto almost entirely out of the picture, what are the leading teams to sign Marner once free agency begins on July 1? Here’s the list based on the best current intel.

Los Angeles Kings

Armed with a new general manager and a little bit of money to spend, the Kings may be looking for a splashy move to bring a star back to the city of stars. 

While Los Angeles has had good players, competitive rosters, and playoff runs in recent years, they haven’t had a bona fide offensive star in some time. They haven’t had a player in the top ten of goal scoring since Jeff Carter in the 2012-13 season, now more than a decade ago. 

A Marner signing changes that. 

The Kings are projected to have around $21.7 million in cap space this summer, enough to fit a likely $13-14 million Marner asking price on the books. 

In addition to the cap space and motivation to get a deal done, they’ve become one of the frontrunners, according to league insiders. The Athletic’s James Mirtle ranked the Kings in his category of ‘Most Likely Fits’. 

Vegas Golden Knights

Recently, strange reports have surfaced that the Knights were trying to orchestrate a three-team trade with Toronto and the Hurricanes for Marner at this year’s trade deadline. 

The strange part is that no reports have said what Vegas was reportedly offering, and that the reason the deal fell through is that the Knights couldn’t name any attractive players for either team. 

Imagine being Vegas in that scenario, saying, ‘Hey, what if we got Marner, the Leafs got Rantanen, and Carolina got a bag of chips and a continental breakfast voucher at the MGM Grand?’ 

Reports say that the Leafs may have asked for defenseman Shea Theodore in exchange for Marner, something that the Knights reportedly firmly rejected. 

So the interest in the 28-year-old is there for Vegas, but they will only have around $9.6 million in cap space and would need to make some moves to afford Marner. 

Florida Panthers

In reading Marner rumors, the Panthers kept coming up as an option. At first, I dismissed this as propaganda, assuming they wouldn’t have the cap space to accomplish this. 

Before I tell you this, I hope you are seated. 

Florida will have approximately $19 million to spend this offseason. 

Even if you account for a Sam Bennett contract, which The Athletic projects to be in the $6 million range, the Panthers would still have money left over to pay Marner a reasonably-sized deal. 

They’d also offer him the easiest path to a Stanley Cup win of any potential destination, if that’s even what he’s looking for. 

Florida would probably have to abandon hope of signing defenseman Aaron Ekblad and forward Brad Marchand, but landing Marner would be worth it. 

Boston Bruins

The Bruins will have approximately $26 million in cap space after an embarrassingly disappointing season, which saw the firing of the coach, the trade of a franchise legend and captain in Brad Marchand, and the trade of numerous other key pieces on Boston’s roster. 

Like other teams on this list, they need more star power, and they have the money to make it happen. 

Not only would signing Marner be significant for the roster, but it would also be a moral victory over their rival Maple Leafs. It could give Boston one more opportunity to take a stab at the ‘Core Four’ era in Toronto. 

Some say the Bruins may try to take a holistic approach to the offseason and that Marner’s price tag is too hefty for a team with multiple holes to fill. 

But even if they hand a contract to Marner at the highest possible number, which is currently believed to be $14 million, Boston would still have $12 million left to play around with after making a significant upgrade to their forward group.