Toggle sidebar

All Purpose Mitch Marner Talk II

  • Xenforo Cloud has upgraded us to version 2.3.6. Please report any issues you experience.
  • We are currently aware of "log in/security error" issues that are affecting some users. We apologize and ask for your patience as we try to get these issues fixed.
Status
Not open for further replies.
Marner is a special talent that plays a 200 foot game. Any talk of trading him is/was complete and utter lunacy. Marner has generational play making ability and vision. He and Matthews are players that you cannot replace.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Dominance, Brobust and DarkKnight
Marner had the dreaded “high ankle sprain” last season . That injury derails 80% of players seasons. Marner still played well last year and is just healthy this year (and perhaps playing with a chip on his shoulder).
 
  • Like
Reactions: DarkKnight and therealkoho
I will admit Mitch has looked MUCH better and seems to be playing stronger overall.

I still think he is overpaid by 1-1.5 million, but I am happy with him.

I was down on him heavily at first this year but will take my plate of crow and admit I was wrong.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ulysses31, Budz22 and Lumberg
all about the beast in the manster known as SuperMitch:nod:

Opinion | The Maple Leafs are getting even more out of Mitch Marner since he learned to fly
So shush for a moment the science-based arguments on the merits of careful load management of prized franchise assets. And consider for a moment that it might not be a coincidence that Maple Leafs forward Mitch Marner was leading the NHL in a couple of important statistical categories. Heading into Monday’s games, Marner led all forwards in total time on ice. He was also leading the league in total points.

“It just looks like he’s flying,” Morgan Rielly, Marner’s longtime teammate, was saying on Monday.

If Marner’s workload has been surprisingly high to some eyes — his 24:03 a game does raise an eyebrow considering he averaged 21:33 last season — let’s just say it’s hardly unexpected. Marner, for one, knew the heavy minutes were coming. When the player sat down with longtime strength and conditioning coach Dan Noble to plan his off-season training this past summer, Noble said Marner had already been informed by the Leafs brain trust that they were pencilling him in for something in the ballpark of “26 minutes a night.”

To which Noble replied with a frank assessment: “I told him, ‘This is going to be one of the hardest off-seasons of your life. And there’s going to be a lot of times you’re going to want to kill me.’”
The training sessions, done among a regular training group that included fellow NHLer Anthony Cirelli of the Tampa Bay Lightning, were certainly murderously long. They generally began with a 30- to 40-minute “warmup” that most people would consider a full-body workout in itself, including drills to improve co-ordination, not to mention the range of motion in Marner’s hips — a common area of tightness in hockey players that’s a frequent flashpoint of injury.

“When you get fatigued, range of motion reduces. And when range of motion reduces, you become more susceptible to soft-tissue injuries,” Noble said.
From there, the group hit the weight room for a strength workout, maintaining and building muscle to keep them robust enough to weather an NHL season: Again — a formidable workout in itself for mere mortals.

Then came the hardest part: A day-capping conditioning stint designed to enhance what Noble calls “speed endurance” — the ability to go fast, and the keep going fast, for longer than seems humanly wise. It was this part of Marner’s training that was geared toward improving his ability to look like he’s flying no matter how many minutes he’s logged.
“In overtime last year, there were a couple of times (Marner) was chasing guys down on breakaways and he just couldn’t get there,” Noble said. “And we looked at that and we said, ‘We don’t want that to ever happen again.’”

With that in mind, a typical training segment began with Marner and his partners running 100-metre sprints in 15 seconds or less, then repeating the exercise six times with a mere 45 seconds to recover in between. Then came an aspect of Noble’s regimen that frustrated athletes, albeit by design. Sometimes those half-dozen 100-metre sprints marked the end of the workout. Sometimes there was more to come. Noble generally kept the agenda secret.

“I think there’s a lot of value in throwing some chaos at these guys. So they’d think we were done and I’d say, ‘OK, now we’re going to go for a 10-minute all-out run,’” Noble said. “And they’d have to cover as much distance as possible in that time.”

Noble said that by the end of the off-season, Marner was using those 10 minutes to cover more than three kilometres — a brisk pace, to be sure. And sometimes those 10 minutes didn’t conclude the day. Speaking of overtime, more than once Noble demanded Marner and his colleagues run another half-dozen 100-metre sprints, during which Noble wasn’t only observing the time on his stopwatch but the body language of his athletes.

“It’s about learning to work tired. And not only to work tired, but to work well tired. Being mindful of your mechanics,” Noble said. “But every time they come back from that 10-minute run, our athletes were more dialed in for the second set of 100s. I think it’s that sense: ‘I came this far. I’m not going to stop now.’ And so that fuel tank continues to get expanded.”

“But it was almost the perfect scenario for a groundbreaking off-season. Everyone was on edge and pushing and competing and fighting at the same time,” Noble said.

On top of all that, Marner was emerging from the fog of a difficult season that was largely defined by the contentious contract talks with the Leafs that netted him a six-year contract with an annual average of $10.9 million (U.S.) at the outset of training camp. As much as Marner put up elite numbers, racking up 67 points in 59 games, a ho-hum performance in a play-in loss to the Blue Jackets was hardly a satisfying result.

The stress that accompanied the deal and the criticism that surrounded it, Noble said, “took a toll.”

“And I understand that no one’s empathetic to someone who just signed a life-changing contract,” Noble said. “But stress is stress, whether you’re a millionaire or you’re a guy working a minimum-wage job, stress affects all of us … So for him to have that stress gone, it really allowed him to be dialed in on a different level and get back to being who he is. The bottom line is Mitch loves hockey. And he’s a guy who wants to be counted on.”

More than ever, the Leafs are counting on him. Asked about Marner’s early-season performance on Monday in Calgary, where the Leafs were preparing for Tuesday’s game against the Flames, head coach Sheldon Keefe sounded like a man who expects big things from Toronto’s No. 16.
Click to expand...

So now you know, he looks faster and he looks better because he is better this year and will only get better
 
  • Like
Reactions: MattySnipes, Gary Nylund and ACC1224
I think Marner realized he doesn’t need to make a highlight wheel play to silence his critics and is keeping the game simple.
That’s what he needs to do as long as the team gets the W, that’s all it matters.
 
Wafflewhipper said:
I think the contract and all the occurrences against him and his family and agent and fans turning on him had a large effect on him mentally. Yes he was really off. This year he’s calm and having fun again. He’s got good veterans around the team now too. I think it’s all good now. Thats a guess right but if I’m right he could very well be right in a scoring title race.

See where he is at when we get to the halfway point of the season. Having fun is the biggest thing and it’s there in his game again. Big year coming for him,i can feel it.
Click to expand...
I wonder if Andrew Berkshire and his fancy proprietary stats still believes that Timo Meier is a more productive player.
 
Loved that game-winning goal by him in the 3rd, nothing fancy, just a bullet through traffic.

This Leafs team will be cup contenders if Marner can continue challenging Matthews for most dangerous player on the team.
 
  • Like
Reactions: leafsfan5
Notsince67 said:
I wonder if Andrew Berkshire and his fancy proprietary stats still believes that Timo Meier is a more productive player.
Click to expand...
Ha i didn’t know that was a thing. Unbelievable. It was pretty easy to see as soon as Keefer started using Matthews/Marner together that it would become something lethal. We all knew it on here. Babcock couldn’t. Jvr loved playing with him and so did Bozak. Tavares came to the Leafs because of the talent. It’s still growing. These guys are just hitting stride.best years to come most likely.
 
Is it safe yet to start the Art Ross watch? Hope Holl can shut McDavid down again while Marner/Matthews light the Oilers up.
 
One thing that wasn’t obvious to anyone before Keefe started heaping ungodly amounts of ice time on Marner this season is he kind of has the endurance of a scrawny long distance runner. Seems counter intuitive in a way but the ice time seems to work for his build, I’d say better than Auston Matthews in that regard. With Matthews you saw him dancing around the ice in all 200 feet in all games but also real dips in energy levels as the games wore on.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Twine Tickler
GWG and a beautiful last night. Marner getting his legs going and heating up. Looking good out there and being the game breaker he needs to be.

Interesting enough he's been in (goal or assist) on the winning goal in 4 of the Leafs' 6 wins so far this season.

That's the Mitch we're paying for.
 
I thought last night was his best game of the season. He's still struggling with his defensive metrics (getting caved tbh), but his offensive generation is eye popping and I love how effective he is on special teams. If he can tighten up his defensive zone impact he could have an MVP type season, which is really quite something because Matthews is also popping off.
 
Wafflewhipper said:
What a shot. Matthews put it on a serving tray
Click to expand...
I think its one Marky would have liked to have back. But this is why Mitch needs to shoot more. he posed no threat in that spot, as he is not known for his shot. Marky would have been anticipating that play way better had it been a pass from Marner to Matthews in the high slot. I really don't think he was expecting that from Marner, and caught him off guard. Credit to Mitch, this was something he said he needed to step up preseason and has done so thus far. That's not to say there wasn't pain early on when his muffins missed the net, and he had AM wide open for a 1T. But he will catch goalies cheating if he keeps shooting. And eventually might even open up AM for more wide open looks once they stop cheating
 
BertCorbeau said:
GWG and a beautiful last night. Marner getting his legs going and heating up. Looking good out there and being the game breaker he needs to be.

Interesting enough he's been in (goal or assist) on the winning goal in 4 of the Leafs' 6 wins so far this season.

That's the Mitch we're paying for.
Click to expand...
I think he still has all primary assists to this point too
 
  • Like
Reactions: Dekes For Days
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest posts

Ad

Ad

Top Bottom