Vancouver Canucks: How Mitch Marner’s deal affects Brock Boeser
By Kyle Pereira
Mitch Marner has re-signed with the Toronto Maple Leafs for six years at $10.893 million per year. How does that affect the Vancouver Canucks and their negotiations with RFA forward Brock Boeser.
The Mitch Marner signing stretches further out than just Toronto, though. It affects the entire market of unsigned RFAs. That means that it affects Tampa’s negotiations with Brayden Point, the Vancouver Canucks negotiations with Brock Boeser, Winnipeg’s negotiations with Kyle Connor and Patrick Laine, Calgary’s negotiations with Matthew Tkachuk, and Philadelphia’s negotiations with Travis Konecny. Today, I will be looking to see the effect of Marner’s new deal relative to Vancouver’s negotiations with Boeser.
Before we start, let’s look at what Boeser might have been able to earn based solely on the surrounding contracts in Vancouver. The highest-paid player on the Canucks roster is currently Loui Eriksson, Alex Edler, and Tyler Myers. They are all currently being paid $6 million each, but none of them are quite as good as Boeser.
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The closest comparable within the organization is Bo Horvat, who is currently making $5.5 million per season, for the next four seasons. That being said, Boeser, who is better skill-wise than Horvat, deserves to be the highest-paid player in Vancouver. He’s very good and should get paid accordingly.
Unfortunately, the Canucks don’t have nearly enough money to give Boeser what he deserves. They currently sit at a little over $4 million in free space. Boeser likely projected at $7 million before the Marner deal, leading to the Canucks having to move at least one player to bring him back. That could mean a Brandon Sutter deal or a Christopher Tanev deal. Either way they go, trading one of them would free about $8.5 million to re-sign Boeser.
Boeser was patient in the negotiating process, however, and it proved to be the smart thing for him to do. Awaiting what deal Marner would get allowed him to gain leverage over the Canucks. Now that the Marner deal is done, he could manipulate the negotiating process and get upwards of $8 million.
So is moving one of Sutter or Tanev enough to bring back Boeser? First, let’s begin to see how closely Boeser compares to Marner to see where he stands.