Mitch Marner Shares New Information About Decision to Block Trade From Maple Leafs
Photo credit: John E. Sokolowski Imagn Images
Mitch Marner took a lot of heat for rejecting a deal to the Carolina Hurricanes at the deadline, and recently revealed exactly why he refused a trade from the Leafs.
When news broke the day after the trade deadline that Marner rejected a deal that would have sent him to the Carolina Hurricanes in exchange for Mikko Rantanen, the Toronto media and Leafs Nation went absolutely wild.
Ultimately, things cooled down and the Leafs went on to capture their first Atlantic Division title while Marner cracked the 100-point plateau for the first time in his career.
As the Leafs floundered in the post-season yet again, the writing was on the wall for the former first-round pick and after some intense negotiations, the Leafs and Golden Knights agreed on a deal that sent Marner, on an 8-year extension, to Vegas for Nicolas Roy.
Mitch Marner Opens Up About Blocking Deadline Deal
Settled in Vegas, Marner joined other Team Canada hopefuls in Calgary earlier this week for an Olympic orientation camp which somehow turned into a press tour for the former Leafs star.
Marner sat down with NHL.com's Derek Van Diest where he revealed his very valid reason for not leaving Toronto at the deadline.
"The last two years there were a lot of rumors going on, a lot of different stuff swirling around. You didn't know what was going to happen," Marner said. "Then the whole Carolina thing comes up in the middle of the season. It's a bit of an awkward one. My wife was six or seven months pregnant, we really didn't want to be a deadline player. I would have had to leave and go back to Toronto because my wife wasn't coming down with me, so I was moving into Carolina myself if I did that. The logistics of it and everything, it just didn't make sense."
Surely some in Leafs Nation will point out that other players have left their expecting wives to go to new teams at the deadline, but for Marner, he did what he felt was right and wanted to be there to support his wife as much as he could.
Selfish in a way, yes, but if you had a pregnant wife and the ability to remain in a stable situation (off the ice), you can't say that you would jump at the chance to move to a different country either.
Regardless of your feelings towards Marner, sometimes we forget that NHL players are regular people and have lives outside of what we see in the media and they just want to have a slice of normality in their homes.
| POLL | ||
AOUT 30 | 912 ANSWERS Mitch Marner Shares New Information About Decision to Block Trade From Maple Leafs Does Mitch Marner's reasoning for rejecting a trade change how you feel about his departure? | ||
| Yes, it's respectable | 196 | 21.5 % |
| No, he knew he was leaving before that | 663 | 72.7 % |
| Not sure | 53 | 5.8 % |
| List of polls | ||
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