I don't think you can really limit the time period (especially to one with the abnormal flat cap) when we're talking about such rare players and contract ranges. Using cap hit percentages allows us to compare across bigger time periods. If anything, the current cap environment is much, much closer to the early cap era than it is to the early 2020s. You could argue that the 8th year (if that's the route we go) should knock the price down a bit, but Marner is also much better than Panarin when he signed.
A lot of people still don't seem to get how good Marner is. Since we got back to the normal league in 2021, he's been the 5th best producer at 5v5 (0.05 behind 2nd) and the 6th best producer on the PP (0.06 behind 5th), while facing the toughest matchups and bringing high-end defense and PKing. That's a very rare and valuable player. Quite frankly, the closest players to him that have signed in recent history are Matthews, Mackinnon, and Draisaitl, and they all got 15-16%.
