The topic that made up the majority of our content between the end of the 2024-25 playoffs and the start of free agency was the Mitch Marner saga and everything that went into it. Whether Marner should stay, whether he wanted to, whether the Leafs wanted to bring him back, and where it all went wrong.

The Leafs got embarrassed on home ice in Game 7 to the Florida Panthers in the second round, losing 6-1 and exiting the ice to a crowd of boos. At that point, fans just wanted change, and with Marner being at the forefront of the Leafs’ continued playoff struggles, most of the fanbase was ready for a change. He ended up signing with the Vegas Golden Knights after a sign-and-trade that saw Nicolas Roy coming back the other way, and that was all she wrote.

In an episode of 32 Thoughts: The Podcast that came out in August, Sportsnet insider Elliotte Friedman believed that had the Leafs advanced to the Conference Final, Marner may have stuck around in Toronto. Below is a snippet from that podcast episode in the article we covered it.

At this point, it’s pointless to revisit this any further. Marner is a Vegas Golden Knight and is performing below his standards as well, so there isn’t even much of an argument to be made that the Leafs would have been better off keeping him. But, for an article in late August when the fanbase was starving for any sort of news, you guys had a field day clicking on this one.

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