I'm not saying we should only expect to play easy teams - I'm merely acknowledging that there are things that can impact individual playoff production of a player, that they won't always experience. Marner has experienced very difficult situations to produce over the past few years, to an extent that is not common at all, and his production given those situations, while disappointing as a fan, is not as uncommon as people make it out to be.
Our team has generally done well against opposing skaters over the past couple years, but facing hot goaltending in a series will always make winning more difficult. Goaltenders have such massive influence on the game, and are a big part of why upsets are so common in hockey.
I understand that losing sucks, and that's all that most people can focus on, but what should be encouraging is that we did run into spectacular goaltending, and only lost by the very slimmest of margins, while missing a massive part of our team. We saw a team like Winnipeg lose an important player, and get obliterated and swept by the same team. We saw 120 point pace Vegas, even while generally healthy, perform worse than us, and lose in 6 to that same team.
They were also the Cup finalist, and beat higher ranked teams than us this playoffs, so clearly something was happening in the playoffs that wasn't happening when accumulating their regular season record. I think we all know what that was.
A reminder as well that the discussion was about Marner's production specifically. While Montreal may be a decent opponent for the team to beat, facing Montreal, largely at 5v5, and going up against Danault and Weber, and Price going god mode is not a great situation to produce, and we saw that in more than just Marner.
We are not that far off from Colorado, and we are fully capable of winning a cup. I think Tampa and their use of the cap loophole to ice what is essentially an illegal roster, has kind of skewed perception of your average cup-quality team.
By the logic you're using, Montreal is a worse team than us, and they got to the Cup final, so clearly we're destined to win next year, right? In reality, what round you got to isn't the best reflection of team quality or chance to win moving forward.
I mean sure, that would be great and something I hope to see more of in the future, but that's also not really his specialty. I'm not sure why people expect it to suddenly become his specialty in a situation where even the best goal-scorer in the world is struggling to convert.
Marner's shot is certainly not his specialty, but it's also not nearly as bad as people make it out to be, and not all elite players have elite shots. That said, it's a fair criticism, and something he should most be looking to improve. By all accounts, it is something he's working on, and we've seen some results from that, as he was on a 30-goal pace this year.
Being "too fancy with his plays" - fair to some extent, but again, wildly overblown. Are there occasional times when a simpler play would probably be more advisable? Sure, but that could be said about most high-end players, and that's largely a hindsight reaction to it not working. If we were to neuter his creativity, then we'd also be removing a lot of times it does work and create amazing opportunities. Obviously, as players gain more experience, they are able to pick their spots a bit better, but you can't remove every single instance of a creative play not working without talking away the countless times a creative play does work, and for a player with the abilities of Marner, that trade-off is generally worth it overall.
I remember this being discussed in regards to Kucherov during the 2020 playoffs. Sometimes he makes a play that makes you go "Why would he do X instead of Y??", because for most players, X usually doesn't work. But then he does it again, X works, and you get this spectacular A++ opportunity, and you go "Oh yeah, that's why - he's not most players".
The engagement thing, I disagree. That is not a fair criticism. I'm not sure how anybody can say he's not engaged out there, giving it his all. This all seems to stem from his comments in 2020, where he mentioned not being as engaged physically at the beginning of specifically his first game after months of not playing. Somehow, this got twisted into not engaged physically for the whole series. Which then got twisted into not engaged in general. Which then got twisted into him being some lazy, selfish bum who doesn't care or try. It's like some horrible game of broken telephone.
However, the main issue isn't that these three criticisms exist. The main issue is the extent to which they are wildly exaggerated, and more-so all of the other nonsense that gets thrown at Marner. Flat out false, easily disprovable statements with zero substantiation. Insults not only about his hockey play, but about him as an individual. You don't have to love Marner, but we're all supposed to be fans here, and it's just an endless barrage of people saying things about one of our best players that I wouldn't even say about my worst enemies or most hated players on other teams. It's, quite frankly, disgusting.
