How aggressive do Maple Leafs want to push Mitch Marner trade?

TORONTO — It's not so much what Brad Treliving said about Mitch Marner's future with the Toronto Maple Leafs this week.

It's what he didn't say.

Let's flash back to June 2023, when Treliving took his post as general manager of this talent-rich, results-poor outfit.

Cornerstones Auston Matthews and William Nylander were on the verge of extension eligibility, the way Marner is now.

The bullish tone surrounding those star forwards' futures was markedly different than the tempo around No. 16.

Treliving made no bones that summer "priority No. 1" was locking up Matthews. Similar assurances were made about Nylander. Even as the trickier negotiation stretched deep into the regular season, management may have wavered from its price but never its public messaging: We want to re-sign the player. The player wants to re-sign with us. We'll keep chipping away until pen meets paper.

Marner's ultimate-hammer control in his contract year is the same as Matthews' (full no-movement clause). And (so far) his willingness to bet on himself and skate into training camp — and beyond — without an extension in place aligns with Nylander's approach.

What is strikingly different, and where things could get interesting, is the club's position.

“Mitch controls a lot of this whole thing," Treliving told The Athletic's Pierre LeBrun Tuesday, on the heels of a meeting with Marner's agent, Darren Ferris, at the Buffalo combine.

"If there’s a way to make our team better, we’re going to do it. But we’re certainly not going to make a trade just so we can pound our chest and say, ‘Look, we’re different.'”

Treliving also said: “Mitch is a hell of a player. He’s going into the last year of his contract. We’re not going to comment on any players. Any business that we conduct, we’ll do that between Darren Ferris and us. We’re not going to do play-by-play on it. We’ve got to look at every possible way for our team to be better."

Sure, these are boilerplate hockey-executive quotes. (The job is always to find ways to improve the team, is it not?)

But not once since the Maple Leafs' first-round exit — their seventh led by Marner & Co. in eight years — has Treliving said anything along the lines of wanting to prioritize an extension for one of the sport's most dazzling wingers or envisioning Marner a Maple Leaf long term.

“We’re not scared to be bold and do things,” Treliving said. “But there’s got to be things to do out there.

“So, we’ll see. But for me, we’ve got a really good player in Mitch Marner. That’s a good thing. We’ll just keep plugging away on it.”

One needn't squint too hard at the tea leaves to read that Treliving is open to change and ready for business.

Yet the GM has minimal leverage if the organization has already decided that paying three forwards with so little post-season success — great as they are — roughly $36.5 million annually is the proper financial recipe for a Stanley Cup contender. (That figure is based on captain John Tavares coming off the books in 2025-26 and Marner accepting a little more money than Nylander.)

And so, as Treliving explores reasonable rates to retain some of his own desirable UFAs, such as Max Domi and Tyler Bertuzzi, weighs the value of raises for Toronto's restricted free agents and preps for the looming draft and free agency, the elephant in the room awaits.

Marner is shielded by a no-move negotiated in good faith and has no reason to rush. Further, he has already proven once — as Ferris has multiple times, and as is their right — a willingness to press management with the shrinkage of time.

On July 1, Marner will cash a juicy $7.25-million signing bonus from his team of employ. A scant $775,000 in base salary will remain owing over the course of the coming season.

That should make Marner, a rare talent who could switch sweaters in his prime, even more attractive to potential suitors. Because, hey, it's never a bad idea to save your owner money.

Just spit-balling here: Does an opportunistic competing front office get ahead of this situation by proposing a good deal to the Maple Leafs and Marner's camp, instead of waiting for them to make the first move?

While some have drawn a comparable here to Treliving's bold but necessary trade of Matthew Tkachuk out of Calgary, a delicate blockbuster that yielded the Flames a reasonable return and didn't take place until July 22, 2022, the parallel is imperfect.

In Tkachuk's case, the player wanted out.

We don't know how Marner truly wants this all to shake out. Publicly, he's always reinforced his boyhood loyalty to the blue and white. And once he answers a round of contract questions at camp, the story would likely drift into the background until fresh news arrives.

The Maple Leafs have jammed themselves into a corner.

They can a) give Marner another raise, fork over tens more millions and stubbornly keep betting on a program that has proven inadequate in clutch time.

That's the most unlikely scenario this summer, as a Marner extension would go over about as well as surprise Bank of Canada interest rate hike.

They can b) run the core all back in October, keep a "hell of a player" for one more year and cross their fingers that ring-bearing coach Craig Berube and whatever other off-season tweaks they make are enough to get them over the hump.

You could talk yourself into the value of a 99-point penalty killer. But the risk here is twofold: Marner could get injured in-season, which degrades any trade value and/or his effectiveness to help Toronto in the near term. Further, letting such a valuable piece leave as an "own rental" is horrendous asset management.

Or c), Treliving can lean into his only lever to force a trade. Be it through hard public negotiations, leaked info to insiders, or some extreme measure like chopping Marner's power-play minutes or offensive opportunities in his strike-it-rich campaign, the Maple Leafs theoretically could attempt to flip more heat onto the player instead of themselves.

Thing is, that's not Treliving's style. He loathes airing dirty laundry or, as he reminded Tuesday, giving a "play-by-play" on the state of negotiations. He's an approachable peacemaker by nature, a seeker of solutions.

That would be bold, indeed. A sharp heel turn that would inject an element of internal discomfort foreign to Leafs stars.

Unless Marner changes his mind, however, it's difficult to envision an easy one to this situation.