And hence my hockey foresight argument. If thinking that Marner's production would not increase with Tavares in the line up
This is not lack of foresight. This is called having a brain. The claim that "Of course Marner's production was going to go up playing with Tavares, so therefore he should be paid more." Is a completely stupid argument. If it is known - and it seems to be known by everyone - that playing with Tavares leads to higher production then any GM with any brains would say: "Sorry - you are not a 94 point player - you are a player who has inflated production because you played with Tavares."
Your argument doesn't help your cause - it weakens it.
Marner
- plays all situations
- led the team in points 2 years in a row
- PKs
- plays against oppositions' top lines
This is all pretty much meaningless and mainly coaching decisions. Prior to the season Babcock had two top lines. Matthews' has always been the much better player at 5v5 than either Tavares or Marner. Decisions were made accordingly.
Babcock when faced with the question of how to get both of those lines out on the ice soon after a PK decided that he would play Tavares and Marner at the end of PKs. This would get them out on the ice for the end of the PK and generally the first bit of ES time after a PK. Then the Matthews line would go out. This made all the more sense because the Leafs' main penalty killing forward - Hyman - was on that line. This was a decision based on Marner being on a line with Tavares and Hyman. Things didn't work with Tavares on the PK, so things were juggled a bit, but the reasoning for why Marner was ever even tried out on the PK was because he was playing with Tavares. Matthews hasn't been tried - and I would prefer that he never does start to PK because he already blocks far too many shots, and PKing is something that almost anyone can do.
Playing against opposition's top lines is pretty much complete nonsense too. Matthews' did it the previous two seasons, and I have already shown several times that the difference between quality of competition between Matthews' and Marner last season was almost nonexistent. Where there was a huge difference - quality of teammates - again Tavares.
As for playing all situations - this is again mostly a situation where Babcock made a decision based on Matthews' being the better 5v5 player over the previous two seasons, and Babcock wanting to have his two big lines out consecutively during goalie pull situations for instance. In the dying minutes of close games Babcock would time it have the Matthews line go out and then the Tavares line to finish off the game. If the Leafs' had a small lead this would generally result in Matthews' line going out as the last 5v5 shift and then the Tavares line going out around the time that the opposing team pulled their goalie. This was a massive scoring advantage for Marner (who had been used in this role much less than Matthews in the previous two seasons) and was because he played with Tavares.
Tavares deserves to be paid well.
That kind of thinking from dubas is the reason leafs are in the mess they are right now
The Leafs' are not a mess right now. They are a well put together team that has one player unsigned because the player is demanding more than the Leafs' (and apparently every other team) think he is worth. It happens. The only thing the GM can do is hold his position or do something like trade the player.
