Mitch Marner’s run as a Maple Leafs is all but over, with all signs pointing to his departure as an unrestricted free agent on July 1. That reality raises all sorts of questions, including how it came to this, whether a breakup is really the right move for either side, and whether this all could have been avoided. But the more pressing question right now is: Where does he wind up?
James Mirtle took a crack at that question a few days ago, ranking all 32 potential landing spots from most likely to maybe to probably not. If we’re being honest, James was probably being kind on the “probably” for that last group, none of whom seem like realistic fits. Still, almost half the league appears to at least theoretically be in the running, which you’d expect for a player with as much talent and upside as Marner can offer.
Great. But all that analysis is leaving out the most important part of any great drama: The villain.
If Marner truly going to betray a Toronto fan base that never had a bad word to say about him – don’t search any social media, just go with it – then he might as well embrace the heel turn. Really kick Leaf Nation through the barbershop window, you know? There may even be a very small minority of you out there in other fan bases who’ll be rooting for it to happen.
OK, so let’s figure this out. Today, we’re going to rank Marner’s potential destinations based solely on how much it would twist the knife on his former team and its fans. I’ve used Mirtle’s list as a starting point, and taken all the teams that he ranked as having at least a quasi-realistic shot at landing the best UFA the league has seen in years. That leaves us with 16 candidates; let’s count them down from least to most painful for Leaf fans.
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