I don't agree with all of what you are saying. Best scenario is to trade him, 2nd best is to let him walk as UFA the worst of it all is to re-sign him with full nmc/ntc and at a ridiculous cap hit. we have 8 years of evidence that marner cannot drive his own line he needs matthews or prime tavares to succeed. Nylander drove his own line with freakin' kerfoot as his center and put up points btw just for some historical context.
in grand scheme of things, we have already committed to matthews and nylander; matthews' prime is now i.e. the duration of the 4 years he signed for. We have to maximize those 4 years for a chance at the cup. Next year is a dead year because of tavares/marner 22M cap hits. Next off season we will get 22M in cap space to completely change the roster to really go for it in the reamining Matthews' 3 years.
After that, quite frankly, it is probably rebuild time again anyway if we still dont have the cup.
I absolutely hate the idea of doing the same thing again and again and again and expecting different results. It hasn't worked, I don't get why people expect it to work with marner re-signed. It will not work. Marner isn't Kuznetsov that changed cap's outlook completely with ovi changing the way he played to win the cup.
Marner's play will never transition well into the playoffs unless he is carried by a bonafide center. he just isn't good enough IMO
Don't get me wrong... I HATE the idea of signing him too...
But cap space is only as good as what you can actually do with it.
You look at the list of impending UFAs for next year, adn it's not exactly an overwhelming list.
Shesterkin is he really gonna leave New York?
Rantanen would he really leave Colorado? and if he would, would it not put us in a similar position as Marner today with too many high $ forwards?
Draisaitl would be great, but I suspect that if he doesn't stay in Edmonton, he's not staying in Canada.
Ekblad I cannot imagine is leaving Florida.
So who does that leave you? Boeser? Provorov? Ehlers? Mangiapane? Konecny? Theodore? Verhaege? It's not an overly spectacular group, and that's before the list gets paired down by resignings. It's also not really featuring that 1 stud defenceman that we've been after for a while.
Sure, you can certainly argue that this wteam would be a lot better swapping Marner for Rantanen, or Marner + Jarnkrok for Boeser & Konecny... but that's a heck of a risk to be taking on July 1.