"Too dangerous to extend" - NHL analyst bluntly cautions Maple Leafs against new Mitch Marner deal

NHL insider Jay Rosehill warned the Toronto Maple Leafs against rushing into extending star forward Mitch Marner’s contract. Marner is in the final year of his $65.4-million contract with the Leafs, and some experts expected the franchise to have him on a new deal already or have traded him before the deadline.

Rosehill, however, wants the Leafs to wait until after the playoffs before taking a final call about Marner’s future. On Friday's edition of the “Leafs Morning Take” podcast, he claimed that Marner's individual brilliance on the ice was not translating into honors for the Leafs.

"It's too dangerous to extend Mitch Marner," Rosehill said. "And it's not even against Mitch Marner personally. It's just that everyone else is locked up, and he's kind of that one dude and Tavares as well (without contract extensions so far).

"Every time they show everything. They win Hart trophies, and they win Rocket Richards, and they do this fancy stuff, and they come up big. But when the going gets hard, and when it's time to get the good stuff done, they have over and over and over and over again disappointed."

Rosehill, a former NHL player for the Leafs, supposedly alluded to the long and record-breaking Stanley Cup drought. It has been 56 seasons since the franchise last lifted the trophy.

The analyst posted a clip from the podcast on X (formerly Twitter), stating that the Leafs' 3-2 loss against the Florida Panthers on Thursday shows why they should wait before making any expensive contract moves.

“If they don't get it done, if they get bounced in the first round, again, it's going to be pretty hard to justify, right? Especially if it's a game like last night where the guys that need to be different to makers aren't," Rosehill said.

Mitch Marner, Auston Matthews fail to score in Leafs' loss

Mitch Marner and team captain Auston Matthews were anonymous on Thursday night against the Panthers, recording no goals or assists. Marner saw his seven-game point streak snapped as a result.

“We limited them shots and they limited us shots,” Leafs coach Craig Berube said via NHL. “That’s a high volume shot team, so I thought our checking was good and we did a lot of good things. You always want to be better; we’ve got to push through this.”

On Saturday, the Leafs take on local rivals Ottawa Senators in a fixture dubbed the “Battle of Ontario.”