A report came out the day after the trade deadline that the Oilers were heavily involved in the Mikko Rantanen sweepstakes, going so far as to say the Oilers had a tentative extension in place that was above that which he signed with Dallas. At the end of the day however, the Dallas Stars had a package which included Logan Stankoven that would have been difficult for the Oilers to match.

Moving aside from the potential Rantanen signing itself, I want to focus on the fact that the Edmonton Oilers were prepared to sign a top end pending free agent and were willing to use 12.5+ million in cap space to do so. While at the end of the day it didn't work out with Rantanen, we could see it with another high end winger this off-season.

Enter Mitch Marner.

The Leafs top end winger is 27 years of age and is a UFA at the end of this season. The short version of the Marner saga for those not familiar is that back in 2023, the Leafs wanted to get a contract extension done but ultimately the Marner camp did not agree to anything. Marner had a NMC kick in for the 23/24 season and for this season as well, giving him full control over his future.

We now know from Elliotte Friedman that the Hurricanes and Leafs were trying to come up with a package for Rantanen and ultimately the Hurricanes stated they wanted to trade Rantanen for Marner. The Leafs approached Marner with that deal and Marner shot it down, using his NMC rights. When asked in interviews about it, Marner certainly looked displeased that his current team wanted to trade him.

So here we have an elite winger who is having a career year, has not extended with his current team, and now also appears to be disgruntled by that team. It appears at the very least like Marner is going to test the free agency waters and see what is out there.

Today at least we aren't going to get into the cap situation and whether the Oilers trying to do the same thing as the Leafs; lock in a large amount of salary into a few forwards is their best play moving forward. The main point I wanted to discuss is the Oilers were certainly prepared to do that with Mikko Rantanen so why wouldn't Stan Bowman at least be entertaining that idea for Mitch Marner.

If Stan Bowman was prepared to sign Rantanen to a 12.5 million dollar deal over 8 years, I can't see why he wouldn't offer a similar package to Marner over a 7 year deal in Free Agency. In Free Agency the two big factors for Marner will be the salary and playing in a market where he has a chance to win.

The obvious asterisk in all of this is on how both the Edmonton Oilers and the Toronto Maple Leafs fair in this years Stanley Cup Playoffs. If the Leafs go on a long run, perhaps even winning a Cup, Marner may be inclined to stay or if the Oilers crash and burn early than Marner may not look at another Canadian market as a wanted destination.

This is all pure speculation right now but until Marner puts ink to paper on a contract somewhere, this will absolutely be a key storyline to watch heading into the off-season.

Thanks for reading.

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