Mitch Marner headlines Daily Faceoff’s first Top 50 UFAs of 2025

It never truly feels like a Toronto Maple Leafs season unless there’s some kind of persistent contract discourse taking place surrounding one of those stars. With Auston Matthews inking a four-year extension prior to the 2023-24 season and William Nylander signing for eight years in January of that year, it’s now Mitch Marner’s turn to make his rounds in the headlines.

This edition of contract negotiations with a Maple Leafs core player has featured everything from repeated attempts to get Marner to address his negotiations to a link with another pending unrestricted free agent (UFA) at the time, Mikko Rantanen. The Maple Leafs went as far as to ask him if he would move his no-trade clause in a potential deal for Rantanen, which he promptly declined.

All of this is to say that it should come as no surprise that Marner is atop DailyFaceoff’s first Top-50 UFA rankings. Although there could have been an argument made for Rantanen, he signed an eight-year extension with the Dallas Stars shortly after the Hurricanes traded him there. With Rantanen off the board, Marner is the NHL’s clear cut best free agent to be available in a couple of months, with Vancouver Canucks winger Brock Boeser and fellow Maple Leaf John Tavares rounding out the top three on the rankings.

Marner is on pace to hit the 100-point plateau for the first time in his career with ease, and it was only a matter of time. He’s sniffed the mark every season dating back to 2018-19. He finished last season with 85 points in 69 games and the year before with 99 points in 80 games. Arguably his strongest season came in 2021-22 when he finished with 97 points in 73 games, which isn’t far off of where he is now.

Marner currently has 93 points in 74 games, and provided he continues to produce at the pace he has been lately and doesn’t run into a last minute slump, should realistically hit the mark for the first time, which will only drive up his price this summer. Whether the Leafs shell out the money he’s looking for seems to depend on how this season’s playoffs go, a fact that nobody needs reminding of. If he can put the team on his back and take them on a lengthy playoff run for the first time in the Matthews/Marner era, the odds of the Maple Leafs giving in and paying him what he wants drastically increases. If not, there will have to be some tough questions asked.

Marner currently leads the Maple Leafs in points by a 13-point margin, with William Nylander behind him at 80 points through 75 games.