The Toronto Maple Leafs and Vegas Golden Knights will forever be connected after the events of the 2025 offseason.
After nine years of being one of the faces of his hometown team, Mitch Marner fled for Sin City in what ultimately went down as a sign-and-trade, sending Nicolas Roy back to Toronto.
It was a tenure full of regular-season success that continuously ended with playoff shortcomings, resulting in a breakup that felt long overdue.
While Marner is now a Golden Knight and the Core Four era is a thing of the past, don't think this story is going anywhere. Former NHLer, now TSN analyst, Frank Corrado certainly feels there are more chapters to be written, and he recently predicted that the Maple Leafs will meet Marner and the Golden Knights in the 2025-26 Stanley Cup Final.
"Here's my wild take for this season: The Toronto Maple Leafs make the Stanley Cup Final, and they play against Mitch Marner and the Vegas Golden Knights. Two good teams—there's a chance it could happen, and the Marner saga with the Toronto Maple Leafs continues. Didn't want to re-sign with the team, didn't want to accept a trade at the trade deadline. Finds a way to go to Vegas, signs a long ticket there, and now it culminates with both these teams meeting in the Stanley Cup Final this spring," Corrado said.
The 28-year-old, Marner, signed an eight-year, $96 million contract with the Golden Knights upon being acquired in the trade from Toronto ahead of free agency. He racked up a career-high 102 points (27 goals, 75 assists) in 81 games during his final season as a Maple Leaf.
Could it happen?
It's hard to draw up a more dramatic potential matchup in the Stanley Cup Final than Toronto versus Vegas, though it's not the craziest proposition.
Until the Maple Leafs do it, nobody is going to believe it will happen, but they're a talented team that's gotten deeper and is capable of making a deep playoff run. On the other hand, you can never count the Golden Knights out, and the acquisition of Marner reaffirms their desire to win at all costs.
The more that you think about it, it feels fitting to imagine that both Mitch Marner and the Toronto Maple Leafs have immediate postseason success upon parting ways.
If Corrado's bold prediction were to come to fruition, it would be must-watch television.