The trade

Golden Knights get: Right winger Mitch Marner

Maple Leafs get: Center Nic Roy

James Mirtle: One key question for me with this trade is what could the Golden Knights have received for Nicolas Roy on the open market?

He’s a 6-foot-4, 28-year-old center on a reasonable contract ($3 million for two more years). He also has played a fairly significant role – 15 to 16 minutes a night – for the last four years on a very good Vegas team, including during their Stanley Cup run in 2023.

In this climate, where half the league is dying for additional center depth, it feels like Roy would have been worth at least a couple of second-round picks.

Roy should bring some nice utility to a Leafs team that desperately needed more options down the middle. He’s a good forechecker and can play both special teams. In the past, he’s flashed a bit more offense, too, putting up 41 points in 2023-24 and spending some time with skilled wingers like Jonathan Marchessault and Pavel Dorofeyev.

Roy was likely one of the best centers still available to get, after John Tavares, Sam Bennett, Matt Duchene and others all re-upped before July 1.

One executive I talked to over the weekend pointed out that Roy might constitute the most value a team has ever received in one of these sign-and-trade deals. GMs aren’t typically paying a lot to be able to sign a player a day or two ahead of free agency when they can get them for free on July 1.

A year ago, the Lightning gave up only a third-round pick for the rights to Jake Guentzel. The Leafs gave up a seventh rounder for Chris Tanev’s rights. But a useful roster player like Roy feels like new territory.

So maybe there’s more to that story, but on the face of it, the Leafs did very well to finally get something of value for Marner. Unfortunately, however, they traded him two years too late to really cash in.

For the Golden Knights, they bought the right to go to the eighth year with Marner, which isn’t nothing, either. And they had to shed salary to make his $12 million deal work, too.

Golden Knights grade: B-
Maple Leafs grade: A

Dom Luszczyszyn: It wasn’t for Mikko Rantanen or Shea Theodore or whatever other names have been previously linked in a Mitch Marner deal, but the Leafs got something. For a player who was absolutely 100 percent leaving tomorrow, that’s technically a win.

And a pretty big win at that. Most trades made for a player’s negotiating rights (and in this case, a sign-and-trade) don’t net much in return. Last season the Lightning traded a third-round pick for Jake Guentzel’s rights, and it’s fairly safe to say Nicolas Roy — in a hot center market — is worth more than that. On that scale, the Leafs did very well here (relative to Marner for Rantanen this is obviously an F-minus, to be sure).

One of Toronto’s biggest issues in the playoffs was that Max Domi was the team’s third-line center. That changes with Roy, who is a much better fit in that spot. Over the last two seasons, he’s scored above a top six rate and has a strong history of winning his minutes in the bottom six. Roy has some strong defensive chops and is particularly strong at getting pucks out of his zone — usually a strong indicator of a player you can trust without the puck. Roy’s presence should allow the Leafs to alleviate some of Auston Matthews’ defensive burden, something that Domi could not do.

Roy isn’t a world-beater, but he does give Toronto some real depth, something this team has been lacking for most of the Core Four era.

With Marner going the other way, as many have long suspected, that era is obviously over. While the Leafs could’ve gotten more for Marner in the past and missed their best chance to move him before his NMC kicked in, it’s still commendable that they got anything at all — let alone a decent player. On a solid contract, no less.

For Vegas, the trade is essentially for Marner’s eighth year. It was likely Marner would’ve signed with the Golden Knights when free agency hit anyway, so it’s a question of how much the eighth year matters. If it lowered Marner’s cap hit (something we can’t know for sure), that’s a win in and of itself as Vegas did get a little bit (but not much) of surplus value on the contract. At the same time — it can also be argued that a 37-year-old Marner at $12 million probably won’t be a positive value asset anyway.

Given what Charlie Coyle — an equally good center who’s older and more expensive — was traded for, it feels like the Golden Knights could’ve got something more valuable than the privilege of paying Marner for one more season.

Not that that’s not a win for the Golden Knights who made sure they got their guy and locked him in long-term for a potentially lower cap hit. But it does feel like another direction could’ve netted a bigger win. When it comes to Marner, the Leafs know that feeling all too well.

Maple Leafs grade: A
Golden Knights grade: B

(Photo: Claus Andersen / Getty Images)