From leaf fans perspective, marners downfall starts and ends in the playoffs.
We said it all year, nothing matters until series 1, game 1.
With Matthews, you can visibly see him changing his game during the playoffs. He takes bodies, throws hits, goes to the net, hard on the back check, he visibly cares and at least tries to elevate his game. Same with JT, he’s slowed down significantly but you can’t knock his effort. Nylander threw the biggest hit I’ve ever seen from him (I think game 5?), he’s never going to be confused as a grinder but you can see he’s wired for the big games.
With Marner, it’s just more of the same. The same east-west nonesense that gets shut down easily when the neural zone is tighter in playoff style games. There’a no grind and it’s inexcusable at his salary. He was outperformed by Nylander this season and playoffs, he does not deserve a penny over what the makes now and I feel he’s overpaid at this point.