'Frustration' boiling over with Mitch Marner trade.

There has been a ton of negativity surrounding the topic of Toronto Maple Leafs star forward Mitch Marner since the team was eliminated in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs at the hands of the Boston Bruins, and unfortunately it sounds like the situation won't be getting any better any time soon.

Although most appear to believe that Marner and the Maple Leafs are destined for a divorce this summer, it sounds as though behind the scenes that situation is far less certain. In fact a pair of National Hockey League insiders have recently reported that, not only has there been no movement on the Marner front, but that tensions are at an all-time high on both sides.

NHL insider Chris Johnston recently revealed just how little has happened on the Marner front since the Leafs were eliminated from playoff contention.

"Here's what I know to be true about the situation," said Johnston. "The Leafs are not leaning on Mitch Marner right now, they have not decided 100% they have to trade him and they are gonna make life uncomfortable and they are getting the list of names, none of that is going on."

In fact Johnston would go on to reveal that he doesn't believe the Maple Leafs will aggressively pressure Marner into accepting a trade at any point this summer.

"The fact that remains true with Mitch Marner is that he controls the hammer here," said Johnston. "So if there is a trade the Leafs need to work with him. They need to, as quietly as possible, try to line up the teams or a team where they could live with the return and then they have to go to Mitch Marner and his agent Darren Ferris and see if there is a deal to be made."

That won't be well received by the segment of the Maple Leafs fan base that has been demanding that the core group on this team be broken apart after a number of failures in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Further complicating matters is the fact that all of the talk surrounding Marner appears to be making things even more difficult.

"There's some frustration about all the public discourse about it," admitted Johnston. "That's the nature of the beast when you're that player and the possibilities are on the table that we are talking about."

It would seem as though the frustration behind the scenes may have reached an all time high, with fellow NHL insider Elliotte Friedman confirming as much on his most recent podcast.

"You can not say anything about this topic without somebody going berserk," revealed Friedman on the 32 Thoughts podcast. "This is why this is the hardest topic to discuss in the NHL. This is why it is so complicated, the future of this and the outcome of this is so complicated, because you can't say a thing without somebody getting mad."

None of this sounds like a good way to go about finding a resolution to perhaps the biggest problem facing the Maple Leafs this summer.