It’s official. The Mitch Marner era in Toronto is over. Before free agency could get underway, the Maple Leafs completed a sign-and-trade with the Vegas Golden Knights to send Marner to Las Vegas, in return for F Nicolas Roy. Mitch Marner is now under contract with the Vegas Golden Knights for 8 years, and $12M AAV.

Since the Maple Leafs were defeated in game 7 of the second round, the Vegas Golden Knights showed immediate interest in the Leafs star forward. Typically for Vegas, once a free agent or player available for trade of Marner’s calibre comes available, VGK management is all over the player. Immediately, Vegas was inserted as a front runner for Marner, and with Alex Pietrangelo potentially missing the upcoming season for Vegas, that opens up almost $9M for Vegas to bring Marner in.

Mitch Marner’s Maple Leafs tenure was nothing but successful, where he was able to shine alongside Auston Matthews, and John Tavares.

Marner, 28, has skated in 658 regular season games for the Maple Leafs, scoring 221 goals, 520 assists, for 741 total points. Just looking at the numbers, the career that Marner has had so far is outstanding, not to mention his amazing defensive abilities, being one of the first players out for the Maple Leafs penalty kill. However, where Marner lacks, and arguably in the most important aspect, is playoff performance.

It’s no secret that the Leafs have had their struggles in the postseason, and Mitch Marner has been at the forefront of that issue. Marner, the prolific winger with a huge scoring touch, in 70 career postseason games, only has 13 goals and 50 assists. If you’ve watched Maple Leafs postseason games, you’d see that Mitch Marner is not an effective postseason player. He makes plenty of mistakes, turns the puck over, and doesn’t make the smartest decisions when it matters.

Nicolas Roy, 28, is a perfect third line centre for this Maple Leafs team. It will have Laughton slot in as a winger, and he recorded fair possession metrics, and come out ahead in expected goals at five-on-five in every NHL season, despite often defensive usage. The Leafs can confidently use Roy in either offensive or defensive situations, and with Roy being a strong defensive, checking centreman, this can give the Leafs’ top guys more offensive opportunities as Craig Berube should be able to now fully trust a defensive and checking third line.

Obviously, the way the whole Mitch Marner saga ended is disappointing, and it’s commonly wished upon that Marner could have worked out in Toronto. Regardless, Toronto was able to salvage some value for Marner, sending him to Vegas so they can get their guy, and clear some cap room to sign the star forward.

Toronto has just under $7M in cap room after the addition of Nicolas Roy, and they have opportunities to swing other deals to open up some more room. With this deal, they immediately make their forward group deeper, and do follow the message that Brad Treliving has been saying all offseason, about changing the Maple Leafs’ DNA.