Mitch Marner wins his negotiation battle with the Toronto Maple Leafs

The long nightmare is over in Toronto as the Mitch Marner RFA saga has finally come to an end, but the resolution came much more to the benefit of Marner in the end.

After months of negotiation, the Toronto Maple Leafs and Mitch Marner have agreed to terms on a new contract. The contract will be for six years and worth $65.4 million for a cap hit of $10.9 million a year.

The agreement comes on the same day that the Maple Leafs opened training camp in Newfoundland.

Marner had a phenomenal breakout season to earn such a massive contract this offseason, leading the team in scoring for a second year in a row as well as recording a career-high 94 points. The 94 points made Marner the 11th-highest scorer in the league, and the fifth-highest scoring winger.

However, the cap hit for Marner is tough to swallow. Marner is now the second-highest paid winger in the NHL behind only Artemi Panarin, who got $11.6 million as an unrestricted free agent this summer after signing with the New York Rangers.

Marner and his agent Darren Ferris drove a well-documented hard bargain all summer long, even threatening to sign outside the NHL if necessary. In the end, Marner did end up getting the money he wanted, but Toronto did get the six-year tern it had wanted since the beginning. By caving a bit of the cap hit, Toronto is betting heavily on Marner being able to continue producing 90-plus points a season.

The Maple Leafs now own three of the seven highest cap hits in the NHL between Auston Matthews, John Tavares and now Marner. The combined cap hit for the next five season for Matthews, Tavares, Marner and Nylander comes out to around $40.5 million. That’s almost half of the current salary cap of $81.5 million, and if that salary cap doesn’t increase significantly over the next few seasons, Toronto will be in big trouble with building a full roster.

Right now, the Maple Leafs are well over the salary cap of $81.5 million with a current cap hit of $94.9 million. After placing Nathan Horton, David Clarkson, Zach Hyman and Travis Dermott’s contracts on LTIR, the Maple Leafs should be able to fit right onto the salary cap, at least until Hyman and Dermott return. Some more tinkering will have to be done to fit under the cap when the time comes.

At this point, finally having this drawn out mess be over with is a relief for the Maple Leafs organization and fans alike. After the William Nylander situation that leaked all the way into December, it’s comforting to know that Marner won’t be missing any time heading into the upcoming season.