Player Discussion Marner

[Smif]

Don't waste your time with @francis246 . He once claimed that the "quit crying bro" comment was between Nylander and Matthews, and his proof was his relative, who supposedly works for the Leafs, told him Keefe had laid into Matthews about the power play right before, with Nylander and Matthews bickering over a set play on the pp during a TV timeout.

I pointed out that the story was impossible since the argument didn't happen during a timeout, and it had been a full period since the last power play.

He walked back his statement. I should find it so we can all enjoy his elaborate story.

That's the level of desperation he'll resort to in defending Marner.

Tbh, that's actually how I saw it too. Matthews was crying to Marner, Marner sitting there like "what??" then Nylander saying stop crying to Matthews. I haven't seen the Prime series yet, though, I've heard it gets addressed there.

 

[arso40]

Tbh, that's actually how I saw it too. Matthews was crying to Marner, Marner sitting there like "what??" then Nylander saying stop crying to Matthews. I haven't seen the Prime series yet, though, I've heard it gets addressed there.

He was talking to both of them he seems to be the one with the balls believe it or not

 

[leafs in five]

yes, but not his fault ... you have to take it in context and understand the nuances ... i'm sure dekes or one of the other marnerites will be along shortly explain

"stats are misleading" is a common argument from both sides of this civil war

 

[francis246]

Tbh, that's actually how I saw it too. Matthews was crying to Marner, Marner sitting there like "what??" then Nylander saying stop crying to Matthews. I haven't seen the Prime series yet, though, I've heard it gets addressed there.

He keeps saying it was a relative of mine but he’s conflating two things. My younger brother worked for MLSE for a while, he’s now moved on to the Blue Jays org in their front office. My brother honestly doesn’t care for hockey, we don’t talk hockey at all.

Where I heard from was one of my assistant coaches actually works for Sportsnet and CBC as one of their producers/tv guys, high level. He was working the game that night and saw most of the footage/audio. (I completely recognize it’s hearsay and I even mentioned that the day I posted. Was just offering what I heard).

Edit* the rest of what I posted doesnt even matter anymore, just gonna turn into a pissing match.

 

[shaner8989]

Should be able to resign him pretty cheap at least.

 

[Dekes For Days]

This caught my eye as I had thought that normal Willy would have bagged more goals so far given the shots I have seen him take. Just looking it up now, shooting percentage doesn't include shots that missed the net. So if a shot misses the intended target an inch one way it counts in the percentage, and an inch the other way it doesn't. Am I missing something? Because it's possible he has an unusually low conversion rate this season, in the event he has missed numerous attempts on the wrong side of the bar.

If we combine shots and missed shots and take the shooting percentage from that total, Nylander is still currently converting well above both his usual level and career high.
2020-2021: 9.4%
2021-2022: 9.3%
2022-2023: 9.9%
2023-2024: 9.5%
2024-2025: 15.6%
-----------------------
To address Legion34's statements:

McDavid won the rocket.

Not when he was signing his contract. Goals were almost the exact same proportion of his point total as Marner.

You defining players as “playmakers” or “snipers”’or “grinders”‘ has nothing to do with markets or contracts.

You're the only one that has pretended that it matters whether someone is a "goal scorer" or "playmaker".

Sooooo pages and pages to ignore that goals are the most valuable part of the game and get paid the most.

Pages and pages of me showing you that goals aren't more valuable or higher compensated than primary assists, and you ignoring it.

If you are right. Why can you not provide a single peice of evidence.

I did. A ton. Repeatedly. You just ignore it, and provide none yourself.

 

[notbias]

He was talking to both of them he seems to be the one with the balls believe it or not

If only he played like the other two on the ice and didn't float... I don't think it takes balls to talk.

 

[hamzarocks]

If only he played like the other two on the ice and didn't float... I don't think it takes balls to talk.

Were you watching the 2024 Bruins series with your eyes closed?

Nylander played the best of the big 4 in his 4 games

Marner and Tavares the worst

Matthews 1 great game and then mostly invisible.

Anyone should be able to call out an issue they notice that is hurting the team. Nylander being one of our best players on the team and in that series just makes his call out look better.

If marner was playing good and nylander passive he should have called nylander for overthinking and whining

 

[LeafEgo]

If we combine shots and missed shots and take the shooting percentage from that total, Nylander is still currently converting well above both his usual level and career high.
2020-2021: 9.4%
2021-2022: 9.3%
2022-2023: 9.9%
2023-2024: 9.5%
2024-2025: 15.6%

Yeah makes sense, he's got a lot of goals. Strange about that metric though - it just dropped 10%. If Matty hits the post 10 times in a row his shooting percentage stays the same.

 

[ACC1224]

Were you watching the 2024 Bruins series with your eyes closed?

Nylander played the best of the big 4 in his 4 games

Marner and Tavares the worst

Matthews 1 great game and then mostly invisible.

Anyone should be able to call out an issue they notice that is hurting the team. Nylander being one of our best players on the team and in that series just makes his call out look better.

If marner was playing good and nylander passive he should have called nylander for overthinking and whining

They were calling Nylander out, that's what the whole thing was about.

Nylander was great for the games he showed up for, also hosted great watch parties for the games he couldn't make.

 

[arso40]

If only he played like the other two on the ice and didn't float... I don't think it takes balls to talk.

Dumb comment I must say my friend

 

[Gary Nylund]

If only he played like the other two on the ice and didn't float... I don't think it takes balls to talk.

Sounds like you're talking about Marner after game 86. OK that makes sense, this is the Marner thread after all. And your comment about balls is ridiculous. Nylander is the only one of our stars who consistently shows up for the big games in the playoffs so he has more balls than the rest of them put together. Nylander doesn't talk much at all, but he damn sure walks the walk.

You've posted your numbers before and they don't mean squat. The bottom line is that Marner's great for 86 games, then he's not. This assessment is based on many seasons, it's a big enough sample size that the trend is firmly established and the last two PO series we played he was terrible. Anyone that watched him play in the playoffs against Boston and Florida knows without consulting a spreadsheet that we can't count on him in the playoffs.

Blaming him for -3 last night is ridiculous. Everyone sucked, no need to focus on him. You can count on Marner to pace for 100 points or so just like he does every year because he's shown over and over again that he's a great player in the regular season. He'll have some bad games but who cares, he'll have more good ones. On the other hand, it's also ridiculous to talk about how the coach "trusts him". Who cares, it's October FFS. The question is, can Marner change the narrative in the playoffs?

I have a pretty good idea of what Marner is, and what he isn't and nothing he does during the season is going to have any impact on that. Finish the season with 76 points or 120, it doesn't matter and IMHO anyone who adjusts their assessment of Marner between now and April is a fool.

 

[arso40]

They were calling Nylander out, that's what the whole thing was about.

Nylander was great for the games he showed up for, also hosted great watch parties for the games he couldn't make.

This is an even dumber comment my friend they were b****ing they weren’t calling nothing out the mere fact you can spin the audio that way is weird and if you can’t play you can’t play the hosting parties crap is childish

 

[thewave]

Why can't Mitch make the PP work. He is literally paid to make things like this work. MO has sucked as well. JT forget about it

 

[Nineteen67]

Marner was successfully pushed out of the playoffs again last year, but the other two have not been playoff warriors by any stretch.

 

[Gary Nylund]

This is an even dumber comment my friend they were b****ing they weren’t calling nothing out the mere fact you can spin the audio that way is weird and if you can’t play you can’t play the hosting parties crap is childish

This hosting parties nonsense might be the most pathetic attempt ever to smear one of our players for no reason. Nylander is hardly even injured, he's the only one who shows up for big games, if he was able to play you can be damn sure he would have played and when he was able to play, he was the only guy on the team who was able to actually put the puck in the net.

Not just pathetic, pathetic and disgusting. I get it, some people care more about Marner than they care about the team and that is their right. But when you resort to personal attacks on other players to pump up your one true love, that's just disgraceful.

 

[hamzarocks]

They were calling Nylander out, that's what the whole thing was about.

Nylander was great for the games he showed up for, also hosted great watch parties for the games he couldn't make.

Calling Nylander ouy makes no sense.

He was injured. If you believe he was faking an injury then Marner/Tavares should have called out Matthews who must have been faking his injury in game 4 Period 3 until Game 6 Period 3.

He came back in Game 4 and didnt play like he was afraid to get hit or nervoud from his migranes.

Nylander needs to play and avoid being injured but his play overall was good.

Marner, Tavares and Rielly had sloppy and uneven play laat year vs Boston.

Tavares and Rielly look to be on a decline.

Marner may have had a bad/down series. He still has potential to bounce back tavares not confident at all on and Rielly my faith is shrinking as well sadly.

The leafs will needs 34, 16, and 88 to be the best players in the series to have success.

We have had times where 88s been great and others poor (2021 and 2024), where marner had been great and others poor (2018) where matthews great and others poor (2019)

We need these guys all to play and produce in a playoff run. Otherwise this team is screwed.

 

[Gary Nylund]

Why can't Mitch make the PP work. He is literally paid to make things like this work. MO has sucked as well. JT forget about it

I don't know who to blame, coaching staff, players, I dunno. Maybe Marner's just doing what he's told, I dunno. Still, the guy's the "engine of the team" or so I've been told so I guess it's fair to blame him as much or maybe more than any other player.

All that talent, and such a piece of carp PP. It's embarrassing.

 

[Nineteen67]

This hosting parties nonsense might be the most pathetic attempt ever to smear one of our players for no reason. Nylander is hardly even injured, he's the only one who shows up for big games, if he was able to play you can be damn sure he would have played and when he was able to play, he was the only guy on the team who was able to actually put the puck in the net.

Not just pathetic, pathetic and disgusting. I get it, some people care more about Marner than they care about the team and that is their right. But when you resort to personal attacks on other players to pump up your one true love, that's just disgraceful.

Nylander has never been close to good enough in the post season. Maybe better than Matthews and Marner but overall if that’s the best he has they’re never winning.

 

[thewave]

I don't know who to blame, coaching staff, players, I dunno. Maybe Marner's just doing what he's told, I dunno. Still, the guy's the "engine of the team" or so I've been told so I guess it's fair to blame him as much or maybe more than any other player.

All that talent, and such a piece of carp PP. It's embarrassing.

He is the PP QB along with MO and sometimes OEL. The PP actually looks dynamic when OEL is on and MO off.

MM tosses the puck away a lot

 

[Larcos_Unal]

Most invisible ppg player I've ever seen. Minimum $12.5 on his next contract, let's go Mitchy!!!!

 

[notbias]

Were you watching the 2024 Bruins series with your eyes closed?

Nylander played the best of the big 4 in his 4 games

Marner and Tavares the worst

Matthews 1 great game and then mostly invisible.

Anyone should be able to call out an issue they notice that is hurting the team. Nylander being one of our best players on the team and in that series just makes his call out look better.

If marner was playing good and nylander passive he should have called nylander for overthinking and whining

Is that the only series you've seen?

Sounds like you're talking about Marner after game 86. OK that makes sense, this is the Marner thread after all. And your comment about balls is ridiculous. Nylander is the only one of our stars who consistently shows up for the big games in the playoffs so he has more balls than the rest of them put together. Nylander doesn't talk much at all, but he damn sure walks the walk.

You've posted your numbers before and they don't mean squat. The bottom line is that Marner's great for 86 games, then he's not. This assessment is based on many seasons, it's a big enough sample size that the trend is firmly established and the last two PO series we played he was terrible. Anyone that watched him play in the playoffs against Boston and Florida knows without consulting a spreadsheet that we can't count on him in the playoffs.

Blaming him for -3 last night is ridiculous. Everyone sucked, no need to focus on him. You can count on Marner to pace for 100 points or so just like he does every year because he's shown over and over again that he's a great player in the regular season. He'll have some bad games but who cares, he'll have more good ones. On the other hand, it's also ridiculous to talk about how the coach "trusts him". Who cares, it's October FFS. The question is, can Marner change the narrative in the playoffs?

I have a pretty good idea of what Marner is, and what he isn't and nothing he does during the season is going to have any impact on that. Finish the season with 76 points or 120, it doesn't matter and IMHO anyone who adjusts their assessment of Marner between now and April is a fool.

Wrong.

Dumb comment I must say my friend

Dumb response I must say my friend

 

[francis246]

Why can't Mitch make the PP work. He is literally paid to make things like this work. MO has sucked as well. JT forget about it

The problem isn’t that they aren’t getting chances. The problem is that the PP is not fluid. You have Matthews who wants to be in a specific spot for his patented shot. We don’t have a net front presence, Marner holds on to the puck too long and we don’t utilize the bumper play that every team in the league uses. Quick pass down low, two defenders chase, bumper spot is wide open. It works like a charm, the first years with Babcock we used that play all the time with Kadri and Van Riemsdyk. Hell, Van Riemsdyk used it against us last night.

It’s not just Marner, the whole unit passes so damn slow and doesn’t move.

 

[arso40]

Is that the only series you've seen?



Wrong.



Dumb response I must say my friend

Nope there’s Montreal as well

Notbias is on the do not respond list your a troll I’ve seen enough of your posts to get it …. Noted

 

[hamzarocks]

Is that the only series you've seen?



Wrong.



Dumb response I must say my friend

The nylander call-out was based on the boston series so why wouldnt we discuss that one?

He didnt call anyone out when he had 8 pts in 7 vs MTL

Or either in FLR when him and marner had 3 in 5 and AM had 2 in 5 and JT 1 in 5

The only series he did was boston round 3, which was a series he played strongly in (unlike boston round 1 and 2).