Obviously, that’s a priority now to get both those players signed. Marner’s agent, Darren Ferris, has been on record a few times saying they would prefer to wait until after the year. So how do you proceed now on both of these fronts?
Well, I think with Mitch and Darren, Darren has said that publicly that they don’t want it to be a distraction for Mitch in the season and we fully respect that. We still have discussions with Darren of course on that and other matters. Things can always change during a season. There are breaks during the schedule and different points and obviously once the season ends, well, it’s our top priority now never mind when the season ends, to continue to work toward an agreement with either of those parties. There have been lots of situations where either the team or the player in the history of sports say, “We’re going to wait.” The team might say, “We’ll see how the market shakes out.” Or the player says, “We don’t want to be distracted.” And then lo and behold something finds itself to the middle between them. We remain hopeful. I certainly respect their wishes.
And with Auston and (agent) Judd (Moldover), we continue to have discussions with Judd throughout. Obviously they’re very important players, they’re good players, and we just have to keep working our way to finding something that’s fair for them and works for our program.
This idea has been thrown out there a lot lately, and to some degree, I get a kick out of it because we rarely see it, but the idea that you guys could fall victim to an offer sheet come July 1. And I guess part of it is the situation you guys will be in cap-wise. But I assume you have a pretty standard response for that?
Listen, offer sheets are completely permissible within the NHL. They’ve been used rarely, especially of late, that said this summer there’s an influx of very highly talented restricted free agents. So I understand that the narrative and the conversation surrounding them is increasing. However, I do find it interesting that there’s roughly a third of the teams in the league which are going to have a very prominent restricted free agent coming due, some teams with more than one, including us, but we’re the only team that’s going to have one of our players receive an offer sheet (smirks). That part I find to be interesting. I think it builds a rather interesting (media) narrative around our talks and negotiations.
It’s been interesting talking to other GMs in the league and they sort of reiterate that, that it’s bizarre it’s only Maple Leafs players that can receive one. And I get it. It’s part of the marketplace and the fact the team is doing well and the players are playing well. I think it’s more a by-product of things going well than it is people just trying to stir up stuff about the team and the process. But we’re well-situated regardless of what happens with the players. Our absolute ambition and goal would be to have a negotiated agreement with the players as soon as we can. They’re going to be key parts of our team, we hope, for their entire careers. They’re key, core parts of our team right now.
As I said with the William signing, we don’t want to be in the business of seeing young, very talented, special people walk out of here. So, we’ll be able to keep the players regardless.
