Mitch Marner's finances were discussed critically this week. Scott Wheeler, a hockey reporter for The Athletic, argued that no NHL player has earned more money while only winning few major awards. 

He explained how the league's salary cap increased to $104 million for 2026-27, and how that is the largest increase in recent NHL history.

Wheeler pointed back to the start of Marner's financial boost in 2019. That year, Marner signed a huge contract as a restricted free agent with the Toronto Maple Leafs. The deal is big enough to reshape how other young players got paid across the league.

"Financially, Mitch Marner may be the most handsomely taken care of NHL player to never win a major award ever," he wrote on an X post on July 23. "The Leafs allowed him and his teammates to completely recalibrate the money-making possibilities for players in their RFA years (in a flat cap marketplace!)."

Wheeler's talking about the "flat cap marketplace" of the years when the NHL's salary cap barely moved. Even in such an environment, Marner and his RFA peers found a way to grab huge deals.

This shows the unusual gap in Marner's career. He was drafted fourth overall by Toronto in 2015. He spent nine seasons with the Maple Leafs and totaled 741 points, including 221 goals, across 657 games. 

Marner also earned three All-Star selections and made a career-high 102 points during the 2024-25 season. Despite making numbers like that, Marner has never won a Hart Trophy, an Art Ross Trophy, or any other major individual award. 

The Maple Leafs traded Marner to the Vegas Golden Knights last summer in a sign-and-trade deal. He holds an eight-year, $96 million contract that carries a $12 million cap hit. And that keeps him among the league's highest earners without a major trophy to reason with it.

Mitch Marner sets a new benchmark for the RFA 

Marner's original deal from 2019 carried a $10.893 million AVV over six years, per Spotrac. At the time, it made him one of the highest-paid players in hockey, all while he was still a restricted free agent.

That quickly became the benchmark for other unsigned RFAs. Several players, including Mikko Rantanen, Matthew Tkachuk, Kyle Connor, and Patrik Laine, remained unsigned that same summer. They watched Marner’s negotiation before signing their own deal.

Rantanen agreed to $9.25 million per season on a similar deal, sitting just below Marner. Connor took a seven-year, $49.98 million contract worth $7.14 million annually. Tkachuk and Laine went for shorter deals instead to wait for bigger paydays later on.

That wait eventually got to them, as both Connor and Marner later reset the market standards with their contracts. They signed $12 million-per-season deals in 2025 as the cap now grew to its current rate.

Almost seven years after his first big contract, Marner's first deal still gets referred to as a major moment, which is in the player's favour.

What do you think of Marner's contract compared to his trophy case? Let us know in the comments below.

Read more at NHL Fan Central.

Written by

Aadhya Nalla

Edited by

Soheli Tarafdar