We’re just weeks away from the start of free agency, and fans are starting to make their own wish lists as to who their team should sign on July 1.
All eyes will be on Mitch Marner, the Toronto Maple Leafs forward who has been one of the NHL’s most productive wingers since he entered the league in 2016-17. Coming off a 102-point campaign in 2024-25, the 28-year-old wasn’t able to replicate that success in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and the Maple Leafs were eliminated in seven games by the Florida Panthers, failing to advance beyond the second round for the ninth straight year.
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On July 1, there will be lots of teams lining up to try and woo the four-time 90-point forward, and pundits have speculated the Chicago Blackhawks as being one of those interested. While any team would improve with Marner in their lineup, it may be prudent to avoid signing the 2015 fourth-overall pick.
Here are three reasons why the Blackhawks should avoid Marner:
1. Blackhawks Aren’t In Win-Now Mode
One of the biggest takeaways from the 2024-25 NHL season was that the Blackhawks are further behind in the rebuild than we anticipated. Finishing with the second-worst record in the league at 25-46-11 and 61 points, it felt like every time the team would take one step forward, they would run a mile backwards.
It’s clear that Kyle Davidson and Blackhawks management want to improve this team to a point where they can stay competitive come March and April, and the hope is young players like Connor Bedard, Alex Vlasic, Frank Nazar and Artyom Levshunov take the next step in their professional development.
But even if they were to add an elite-level winger like Marner, it doesn’t guarantee anything for a Chicago franchise trying to make the playoffs for just the second time since 2016-17. Beyond a few budding prospects, the Blackhawks are razor-thin and lack the depth needed to play meaningful hockey in the spring. Even the teams eliminated in the first round of the playoffs have legitimate NHLers on their third and fourth lines; for chunks of the season, it felt like a third of the Blackhawks lineup belonged with the Rockford IceHogs.
Wherever Marner signs on July 1, it will likely be a team with a win-now mindset, one that’s either won a Stanley Cup championship recently, or is gunning for one immediately. If you were asked to place a bet on whether the Blackhawks make the playoffs next season — heck, in the next two seasons — would you take it?
2. Blackhawks Should Spend Elsewhere
Maybe this whole thing is already moot. On May 23, The Athletic’s Scott Powers said on the Powers and Laz podcast that Chicago appears to have already made their plans for the offseason.
“From every indication I have, the Blackhawks aren’t going to go after Mitch Marner,” Powers said. “They’ve already made their mind up.”
Well, that settles it! I mean, anything can happen between then and July 1, and Davidson and co. will likely reach out to Marner’s camp to see what number they’re looking for. The Blackhawks have nearly $30 million worth of cap space this summer, so they obviously have plenty of room to pay Marner as much money as anyone.
AFP Analytics, a consulting firm that does contract projections for NHL players, estimates Marner will have an average annual value (AAV) of just under $13 million. If you take into account that Marner’s camp will pit the offers for him against one another, it’s easy to envision a world where that number could climb as high as $14 million.
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Sure, the Blackhawks could afford it, but with Bedard’s entry-level contract about to expire, he’ll need to sign an extension soon. If Spencer Knight has a strong season, he’ll earn a hefty raise from the $4.5 million AAV he currently has, which expires after 2025-26. We haven’t even brought up the likes of Nazar, Kevin Korchinski and Nolan Allan, all of whom are restricted free agents after next season.
With the salary cap increasing to $95.5 million next season, and as much as $113.5 million in 2027-28 — an increase of $25 million in just three seasons — teams are going to spend a lot of money over the next few years, and a lot of it will be on bad contracts. Some of those moves will make sense in the short term, because worrying about the cap is tomorrow’s problem when you’re trying to win today, but the Blackhawks are nowhere near good enough to be making those types of deals. At least not yet.
3. Marner Won’t Be the Difference Maker
Having lived in Toronto for more than 10 years and having watched nearly every regular-season and playoff game Marner has played in his NHL career, you notice every wrinkle to his game. His ability to be in the right spot nearly all the time and the way he makes impossible passes at breakneck speed.
In the regular season, Marner sees the game slowly, watching from above like how the wealthy watch a game from a private box. He’s able to make plays that can trigger hysteria in viewers, making you laugh from how absurd it is that he was able to make that pass from that spot, or navigate through the neutral zone like an ambulance with the sirens on skirts through rush hour.
But at some point, you are what you are, and after nine seasons, we’ve seen time, and time, and time, and time again that when the weather got warmer, and you only faced one opponent for two weeks, Marner wasn’t able to grab a series by the throat and take over. Fans and pundits will point to the near point-per-game numbers in the playoffs, ignoring the blank spaces in Game 7s and empty-calorie assists that agents use as leverage in a negotiation.
Related: The Case For & Against the Maple Leafs Re-Signing Mitch Marner
That’s not to say the Maple Leafs’ lack of postseason success was all his fault: Auston Matthews, William Nylander, Morgan Rielly, the coaching staff and management all had a hand in Toronto’s playoff failures. But when at 22 years old, you demand a team pay you an AAV of $10.9 million on a six-year deal, they expect to see some results from their investment. That didn’t happen.
As mentioned earlier, it’s highly unlikely Marner signs with whomever pays him the most. If any one of the Carolina Hurricanes or Vegas Golden Knights or Dallas Stars or … dare we say it … the Florida Panthers sign him on July 1, he’ll be joining a group that’s either won a Stanley Cup or is on the verge of competing for one, and he may be the missing piece that takes them over the top.
But with the Blackhawks, the team would expect that Marner leads them out of the league basement and into the playoffs and beyond. Judging from the first half of his NHL career, that’s just not in his toolbox.
