Yes… first, McMann dumps the puck in with speed and crushes the defender on the forecheck. Tavares keeps up with McMann the entire way, forechecks hard, gets hit from behind, and falls but in doing so, he breaks the puck loose. It squirts free to McDavid, and Marner softly swirls in, swipes at it, misses, and then blindly swipes again as he’s falling. On the second attempt, he makes contact. The puck goes to the net, where Tavares—who had quickly gotten back to his feet and bulled his way to the crease—picks it up. Tavares, using his great hands, he puts it on net, and McMann, also battling his way to the crease, finishes the play and scores.
Marner? Whoop, whoop. Comes in late, makes zero physical contact, softly swipes at the puck, and misses on the first attempt. Thankfully, no one was in position to receive the pass anyway. On the second blind swipe, he connects.
The more I watch, the more impressed I am with the "dog on a bone" mentality from Tavares and McMann. Most of the credit absolutely belongs to those two. Tavares looks like a man possessed, obviously motivated by the thought of earning another contract.
I've said this many times about 5v5 Marner: if you believe Marner should just get to float around while his linemates physically battle for the puck, waiting for their hard work to pay off so he can swoop in and make a play, then sure, by all means, re-sign him. But this pattern has been evident in the playoffs too. Matthews does all the heavy lifting, yet their production is still underwhelming in the postseason. Maybe this "wait for the teammate to do all the work" approach doesn’t hold up in playoff hockey.
Marner has just one 5v5 shot in his last six games and just three primary 5v5 assists all year, none of which were spontaneous. Two came from set plays (one called by Matthews), and the third was just a clearing attempt from hisnown zone. Marner currently is 120
3rd in 5v5 points per 60 for players with more than 120 mins.
