You can’t do a sign and trade anymore. ANA isn’t trading Z for an expiring UFA

Anaheim is going to pass

Can’t see Verbeek wanting to spend like 13+ million on Marner nor should we

NSH declines. NSH is going to likely want a piece back instead of just picks, especially late 1sts. NSH would probably look at someone like Cowan and the lower of the 2 firsts as the starting point for Saros.

You can do sign and trades or have extensions agreed upon, you just can't have conditional picks based on players re-signing.

One dipsy doodler for another? Fair trade maybe but not what the Leafs need, a worse version of Marner...also not what Anaheim needs.

I guess that’s the same thing to me in this instance. Why is Marner opting to sign an extension to be traded to ANA vs walking to FA where he’d have that same offer if not better from ANA, in addition to being able to explore every other team in the NHL (most of which aren’t a back-to-back bottom 3 team)? I see zero incentive for Marner.

Meanwhile ANA is going to take on an additional ~$6-7M cap to move the younger player and a 1st in a year where they hope to improve but aren’t actually going to be competing. While they have the cap space now, they will be in a much different position the next 2 years with all of Dostal, Mintyukov, Zellweger, McTavish, Carlsson, Gauthier, LaCombe, coming off of ELCs

I just don’t see why ANA or Marner would want this

Can't speak for Marner, but Anaheim would be crazy to turn this down. They're getting the way, WAY better player for peanuts - a late 1st. It's really as simple as that if he's coming with an extension. They've got some GREAT pieces in place for the future, are about to draft another and they'd be lucky if even one became as good as Marner. He's still only about to turn 27. Would help them to take steps in the next few years and in years of their competitive window.

Worts case scenario they could turn around and trade him for more than this in 6 months cause the Leafs are getting jobbed.

More productive thus far? Totally. But my confidence in the gap between them being worth $6-7M per year and a 1st round pick for a player without the positional flexibility (Z played center the last 10 games), who will be on the decline sooner, and will have a very detrimental impact to the salaries the remainder of ANA’s expiring ELCs will ask for is much less clear cut. I’d totally just rather kee Z and gun for a FA RW. There are an abundance of them this summer. Zegras @$5.7M + EDM 1st + top 6 FA RW (like Reinhart or Stammer) > Marner @$12M.

We both know you don’t trade for Marner with a long term extension in place so I’ll ignore that altogether.

I’d personally just choose to keep building on the foundation in ANA making additions without big subtractions. There are holes to fill, we don’t have many surpluses yet