New Jersey Devils
Should Devils Reunite Sheldon Keefe with Criticized Maple Leafs Star?
Mitch Marner, a highly criticized star in Toronto, is set to become an unrestricted free agent. Should the Devils reunite him with Sheldon Keefe?
There’s an obvious path for those to speculate a situation where Mitch Marner plays for the New Jersey Devils next season.
The Toronto Maple Leafs star, although highly criticized, has yet to be eliminated from the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs. However, the Florida Panthers rallied back from a 2-0 series deficit to take a 3-2 series lead on Wednesday following a 6-1 onslaught that now has Toronto’s backs against the wall.
Amid the loss, Marner was the subject of criticism after a brutal shift by the 28-year-old forward led to a goal for Florida that began to put Game 5 out of reach.
Brutallllllll shift out of Mitch Marner here.
pic.twitter.com/DGOUHO3SUv— Nathan "Grav" Murdock (@NathanGraviteh) May 15, 2025
On the brink of elimination, the questions for Marner already surfaced.
Is he thinking about free agency? Can he imagine himself playing somewhere outside his hometown?
He quickly refocused the questions.
“No, no thoughts of that at all. Like I said, reset,” Marner retorted after Game 5’s loss. “It’s obviously not the spot that we wanted to be in, but you can’t do anything about it. We knew this was going to be a rollercoaster of a ride, you know it’s not going to be easy. Like I said, we have to have the mindset now to go into Florida, take it shift by shift, and win a hockey game.”
Perhaps Marner could erase this all, have a huge Game 6, and put himself back in favor in Toronto where you could easily find videos of fans burning his jersey.
However, after Marner was offered up in a trade, albeit, for Mikko Rantanen earlier this season, it’s not unreasonable to think that he could reach free agency.
The obvious link to New Jersey is the Devils’ head coach.
Sheldon Keefe wrapped up his first season with the Devils in what was considered a good, not great year.
General manager Tom Fitzgerald passionately claimed there will be changes this summer because, “It wasn’t good enough.”
The Devils don’t have a ton of cap space to work with. They’ll take a little over $12 million into the offseason with a major contract in Luke Hughes to sort out.
However, the Devils will need to be aggressive this summer, and that means clearing cap space.
RELATED: Devils’ Aggressive Cap Space Strategy for 2025 Offer Sheets
The same strategies to clear cap space for offer sheets can be applied to signing free agents. However, the question becomes if the Devils should go after Marner or not.
Keefe has already compared Marner to the likes of Jack Hughes, highlighting their similarities as players.
There’s little doubt that a guy like Marner would vastly improve the Devils’ top-six. That would kill two birds with one stone, pushing a player down the depth chart, which should strengthen their depth scoring.
However, signing Marner doesn’t come without risk. A lot of risk.
In the face of adversity, Marner has rarely raised his game when the Maple Leafs have needed it most.
Throughout his career in the playoffs, Marner’s collected an elite 12 goals and 52 points in 44 playoff games during Games 1-4. However, in Games 5-7, his production plummets to a goal and 10 points in 23 games, according to Sportsnet Stats.
Without a shot on goal in Games 3 & 4 against Florida, Berube had this to say of Marner when the pressure was on the Maple Leafs.
“Sometimes your top guys, they’re looking to get too good of a chance sometimes instead of just putting the puck on net,” Berube told NHL.com. “I think there’s times where we could put more pucks on net at angles, bad angles, just firing it in there with people going to the net. You never know, it goes off somebody, rebounds or anything like that.
“I think Mitch could just be a little bit more direct in that area. He has the puck a lot, we know that, and he’s got to look to put more pucks to the net. I get what he’s trying to do, he wants to upgrade his chance, upgrade the chance. He’s a passer first, we know that, but we need him to shoot pucks too. So yeah, I agree with you on that. Two games without a shot, he’s got to shoot the puck.”
Former NHLer, Jay Rosehill, was far more critical of Marner’s approach to the game.
“Those f–king pirouettes that he does in warm-up is how he wants to play the game,” Rosehill said. “How do people defend it anymore? You are not winning with this player leading the charge, you’re not..”
Marner’s been here before. The Ontario-born forward is a lightning rod for criticism, especially in the hottest hockey market in the league.
Perhaps he’s willing to follow his former head coaches lead to take his talents to a smaller, quieter market.
Enter the Devils.
Should New Jersey consider him as an option, though?
For starters, Marner is projected to earn a $12.96 million average annual value over seven years, according to AFP Analytics.
That would take up the entirety of the Devils’ cap space this summer, and then some, if New Jersey wanted to make it happen.
But let’s say they do clear cap space for it to work. Is the player worth it?
Keefe has a mixed history with Marner. It should come as no surprise, he’s critical of all his players when it’s necessary.
Still, back in October 2022, when the season was just getting underway, Keefe benched Marner amid struggles, which left a sour taste in Marner’s mouth.
However, when Marner deserved praise, Keefe didn’t refrain from highlighting his elite skill set, either.
In fact, Keefe helped develop Marner into one of the best versions of himself, mentoring him to his first 30-plus-goal season while he regularly eclipsed 90-plus points.
Still, Keefe’s shortcomings in the postseason coincide with Marner’s (in addition to fellow Maple Leafs stars) inability to rise to the occasion.
Going into his age-28 season, Marner is at the peak of his career. He’s regularly shown to be one of the best current NHLers in the regular season, yet, hasn’t proved his worth when it matters most when the expectations are raised.
Could that change in a small New Jersey market with far less pressure?
Perhaps, but that’s a huge, $12-plus million risk to take, and one the Devils should probably avoid.
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