Should the Chicago Blackhawks trade for Toronto Maple Leafs forward Mitch Marner?

There is speculation that Mitch Marner could be traded this offseason especially if the Toronto Maple Leafs get eliminated by the Boston Bruins in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Marner will be entering the final year of his six-year deal next season. His cap hit is $10.3 million, so unless the Leafs are willing to retain a bulk of that hit, there are not many teams with the cap space to trade for the talented forward. Considering the Leafs will be up against the cap, they would probably prefer someone take on the full salary.

One team with plenty of cap space is the Chicago Blackhawks.

The team could use goal-scoring help and a talented player to skate with Connor Bedard. Marner had 26 goals and 59 assists this season for the Leafs. He has 194 career goals and 445 assists during his eight seasons.

Plus, he just turned 26, so he would fit in with the Hawks' youth movement.

Here is the problem, Leafs fans cannot wait for him to leave due to his postseason struggles. He has 11 goals and 39 assists in the postseason. Also, there seems to be some chemistry issues plaguing the Leafs in the postseason with some of it coming from Marner's behavior.

NHL insider Elliotte Friedman thinks if the Leafs cannot advance in the playoffs, the Leafs will move Marner as committing a huge portion of the cap to four forwards in Auston Matthews, William Nylander, John Tavares, and Marner have yielded no Stanley Cups. Since Marner has one year left on his deal, it makes sense to send him packing.

Clearly, Marner would help Bedard, but the kicker is Marner would have to waive his no-movement clause, and you can bet if he is going from a cup contender to a top draft pick contender, he is going to want an extension. If he does agree to waive his NMC without an extension, the Hawks would still have to give up assets to land him.

Hot Take Hockey thinks the Hawks would have to give up Colton Dach and a couple of high picks.

Now Hot Take Hockey's trade proposal does involve adding Seth Jones' contract, so the Hawks theoretically could get out from the team's lone terrible contract. Trading for Marner, despite playing a soft style of hockey, would be a sign that Hawks general manager Kyle Davidson is serious about raising the standards that he preached at his postseason press conference.

However, Davidson seems more patient than his predecessor and is not inclined to give up premium assets for the sake of being competitive. It would not be shocking for the Hawks to exploit the Leafs' cap crunch. Davidson would probably look to take a bad contract off the Leafs' hands in exchange for a draft pick much like he did with Petr Mrazek.