Mitch Marner Discussion Continued

[Joey Hoser]

I
Blank slate Mitch ... perform in the playoffs or you and your GM buddy are gone.

I don't think you know what "blank slate" means

 

[The Hanging Jowl]

I don't think you know what "blank slate" means

I think he's saying he's giving Mitch a blank slate heading into this season and forgetting the past. If I'm interpreting his post right, I think knows exactly what the phrase means.

 

[TheBeastCoast]

As a non leaf fan I find the hate MM gets pretty nuts.
He is for sure overpaid but haven't Tavares and AM had their best seasons with him on their wing?

From the outside perspective JT seems to be the contract that is the most destructive, a 2c shouldn't make 11 million and I get that production wise hes a 1c but having a solid 2way guy at say 5-8 million like a Horvat is not only cheaper but can play more of a shutdown role while still putting up 60+ points.
How many wingers have put up 90+ points while being trusted enough to kill penalties?

End of the day his production does mostly justify his salary in the regular season. Most of the hate is coming from him laying the worst of eggs in the playoffs. For that amount of money comes expectations to carry this team to some degree in the playoffs and he just hasn't been able to yet.

 

[supermann_98]

I don't think you know what "blank slate" means

I think he's saying he's giving Mitch a blank slate heading into this season and forgetting the past. If I'm interpreting his post right, I think knows exactly what the phrase means.

Yeah that's right. Blank slate heading into this year and I'm not gonna harp on him all season - I want to enjoy watching hockey and appreciating his talents - but come playoff time I expect points and even some goals from him. If he has another no-show playoffs and they're bounced first round again I'm done with him and Dubas and probably even the team unless some major player personnel changes are made

 

[Dekes For Days]

I remember Dekes saying that Marner's PPG is so good, that's why he deserved the contract and no reason to think that he couldn't keep up the production with increased minutes (even though I showed him some hard data indicating the opposite). Last season it looked liked Dekes might be on to something as Marner was killing it all season long. But then again, it was a short season so not clear if he could keep it up over a full season and of course in the playoffs, the bottom fell out so at this point in time, I think even Dekes might admit that the idea that PP/60 is what matters irrespective of minutes played is flawed so say the least.

First off, your loose paraphrasing of what I've said is incorrect. I'm also not even 100% sure what statistics you're referencing, because neither "PPG" or "PP/60" are statistics. I assume you mean P/GP (points per game) and either P/60 (points per 60) or PP P/60 (powerplay points per 60). Unlike many people, I utilize a wide range of statistics, instead of relying exclusively on raw points to tell the whole story in the face of obvious issues with doing so.

Second, Marner deserved his contract because his pre-signing production levels placed him there relative to his post-ELC contract comparables, both recent and historical. He was an elite ES and PP player, who was also an important part of the PK, who put up one of the best seasons prior to signing in the entire cap era. PP P/60 is an important tool for this situation, to understand the quality of PP player that Marner was, without letting opportunity impacts (which are significant in this instance) skew our perception. Some wish to treat Marner as a bad PP player and punish him for things that had nothing to do with him, when in actuality, he was one of the best PP players at that age in the entire cap era and he was never going to take a contract that didn't acknowledge that, especially after Babcock had done everything in his power to neuter their production in other ways.

Third, you have never "shown me hard data indicating the opposite". In fact, you repeatedly refused to substantiate claims, while I provided you piles of explanation and data substantiating my position. If anything, what has happened since has only further supported my position. I never said that per-60 is all that matters irrespective of minutes played. I said that per-60 is important to consider in this instance, where he had relatively minor overall differences in ice time, but a very different (and less favourable) game state distribution from many of his comparables, that skewed his raw production relative to them. Considering per-60 metrics is especially important for the PP where the rate of production is high, raw production has proven to be heavily impacted by ice time, and there can be significant variations in PP ice time across teams and eras. This discrepancy has led to countless people misunderstanding why he earned the contract he got, when it's really pretty simple and obvious if people would put aside the hate for a second and think about it rationally.

Fourth, no "bottom fell out" in the playoffs. He generally played well in the playoffs, and won his matchup, but raw production in the playoffs is impacted by a lot more external factors than raw production in the regular season, and this is further exasperated by the small sample. The reasons for his drop in production have already been explained to you multiple times, and there's no evidence it was a result of "too much ice time", or whatever it is you're claiming now. If there was any truth to that, it would be impacting his level of play and chance generation, not just his conversion.

 

[Gary Nylund]

Fourth, no "bottom fell out" in the playoffs. He generally played well in the playoffs, and won his matchup, but raw production in the playoffs is impacted by a lot more external factors than raw production in the regular season, and this is further exasperated by the small sample. The reasons for his drop in production have already been explained to you multiple times, and there's no evidence it was a result of "too much ice time", or whatever it is you're claiming now. If there was any truth to that, it would be impacting his level of play and chance generation, not just his conversion.

I don't have the time and energy to write lengthy essays so I'll just respond to this last part. M&M need to do a helluva lot more than "win their matchup" against a team like MTL (or CLB for that matter). If you have no issues with Marner's performance in the playoffs and you don't think his level of play in the playoffs has been "impacted", not just this season but the last 3 seasons then there's nothing more to discuss here. Sounds like you're happy, so good for you.

 

[Dekes For Days]

M&M need to do a helluva lot more than "win their matchup" against a team like MTL (or CLB for that matter). If you have no issues with Marner's performance in the playoffs and you don't think his level of play in the playoffs has been "impacted", not just this season but the last 3 seasons then there's nothing more to discuss here.

Conversion is important in the playoffs, and I would like to see more out of Marner, but there is a lot more to the story than just lower raw points = playing bad. This idea that Marner is some broken player in the playoffs is ridiculous, and while there are some obvious explanations for why his playoff production has been lower over the past few years, nothing suggests "playing too much" is one of them.

 

[IPS]

I don't have the time and energy to write lengthy essays so I'll just respond to this last part. M&M need to do a helluva lot more than "win their matchup" against a team like MTL (or CLB for that matter). If you have no issues with Marner's performance in the playoffs and you don't think his level of play in the playoffs has been "impacted", not just this season but the last 3 seasons then there's nothing more to discuss here. Sounds like you're happy, so good for you.

Well said, and I'm certain that even Marner himself feels this way.

 

[ZEBROA]

We dont need more from Marner regular season, we need more in the playoff. And more help from the coach. If they do not produce, make line change. Put the best player for the day with them. Even superstars need to get help when nothing works.

 

[Gary Nylund]

Conversion is important in the playoffs, and I would like to see more out of Marner, but there is a lot more to the story than just lower raw points = playing bad. This idea that Marner is some broken player in the playoffs is ridiculous, and while there are some obvious explanations for why his playoff production has been lower over the past few years, nothing suggests "playing too much" is one of them.

I never said he was "broken", but his production has been poor for the last three playoffs.

Ice time being the issue was suggested by diceman who's pretty knowledgeable. No saying he's right for sure but is seems like a possible reason to me. I haven't checked all the data but from what I did check, it looks like the two big stars for us and EDM played a lot more than any other forwards so while it's possible that it's just a co-indidence that they all had poor numbers, it seems fishy to me. You say nothing suggests that playing too much might be the reason for poor production, not sure how you can say that as it seems like an obvious possibility to me.

There's a reason that most elite forwards were limited to around 20 minutes per game and it seems pretty obvious that at some point, more ice time leads to a drop off in in quality of play, otherwise Matthews would play 60 minutes every game. So the question is that all coaches have to decide - what's the magic number, how many minutes should each player play. It also seems obvious that a smaller guy like Marner probably can't handle the same number of minutes as a big guy like Matthews.

Do you think all the other teams are making a mistake by not playing their stars more? If there's no drop off in quality between say 20 and 24 minutes, all the other teams must be doing it wrong, yet we're the ones who's stars didn't produce. Again, seems fishy to me.

 

[Zybalto]

Did some math in the International forum thats probably relevant here (was actually interested in O'Reilly's numbers at the time). Gonna repost:

Score adjusted playoff 5v5 xGF%/60 the last two years for the more popular team Canada forward candidates:

1. Marner 66.29
2. McDavid 64.12
3. O'Reilly 61.74
4: Bergeron: 59.48
5. Tavares: 59.40
6. Point: 58.44
7. Crosby: 57.79
8. Marchand: 57.19
9. MacKinnon: 57.13
10. Stamkos: 56.77
11. Stone: 56.62
12. Barzal: 54.78
13. Couturier: 53.10
14. Huberdeau: 52.59
15. Scheifele 45.05

Looking at 5v5 xGF%/60 REL to try and squeeze out team bias (to boost O'Reilly even further and try to help out Scheifele here heh):

1. O'Reilly: +23.20
2. Marner: +14.57
3. Couturier: +11.82
4: Bergeron: +8.80
5. Barzal: +8.38
6. Tavares: +7.83
7. McDavid: +6.87
8. Point: +6.40
9. Scheifele: +6.12
10. Marchand: +5.98
11. Crosby: +5.93
12. Stamkos: +5.18
13. Huberdeau: +4.96
14. MacKinnon: +4.53
15. Stone: -1.67

Marner's 5v5 playoff underlying numbers are absolutely insane. His line has pretty much been a mismatch for anyone the last two years on two decent defensive teams.

 

[Aashir]

Did some math in the International forum thats probably relevant here (was actually interested in O'Reilly's numbers at the time). Gonna repost:

Score adjusted playoff 5v5 xGF%/60 the last two years for the more popular team Canada forward candidates:

1. Marner 66.29
2. McDavid 64.12
3. O'Reilly 61.74
4: Bergeron: 59.48
5. Tavares: 59.40
6. Point: 58.44
7. Crosby: 57.79
8. Marchand: 57.19
9. MacKinnon: 57.13
10. Stamkos: 56.77
11. Stone: 56.62
12. Barzal: 54.78
13. Couturier: 53.10
14. Huberdeau: 52.59
15. Scheifele 45.05

Looking at 5v5 xGF%/60 REL to try and squeeze out team bias (to boost O'Reilly even further and try to help out Scheifele here heh):

1. O'Reilly: +23.20
2. Marner: +14.57
3. Couturier: +11.82
4: Bergeron: +8.80
5. Barzal: +8.38
6. Tavares: +7.83
7. McDavid: +6.87
8. Point: +6.40
9. Scheifele: +6.12
10. Marchand: +5.98
11. Crosby: +5.93
12. Stamkos: +5.18
13. Huberdeau: +4.96
14. MacKinnon: +4.53
15. Stone: -1.67

Marner's 5v5 playoff underlying numbers are absolutely insane. His line has pretty much been a mismatch for anyone the last two years on two decent defensive teams.

Both sides of the Marner spectrum are stuck in a misunderstanding.
Marner “haters” aren’t saying he was dominated. Their arguments are about how an 11 m dollar player can’t convert his chances.
Marner “stans” aren’t saying Marner was perfect, they are saying he wasn’t totally shit.

The answer is in between both arguements

 

[666]

It also seems obvious that a smaller guy like Marner probably can't handle the same number of minutes as a big guy like Matthews.

That's a really weird thing to say. Technically, if you've ever played at a high level, skating efficiency is crucial to handling minutes and I think we'd all agree that Marner is a terrific skater. Anecdotally smaller guys like Marner and Kane seem to do fine with more ice and Marner gets more than Matthews and seems to handle it just fine.

 

[Martin Skoula]

Both sides of the Marner spectrum are stuck in a misunderstanding.
Marner “haters” aren’t saying he was dominated. Their arguments are about how an 11 m dollar player can’t convert his chances.
Marner “stans” aren’t saying Marner was perfect, they are saying he wasn’t totally shit.

The answer is in between both arguements

The main issue is Marner has one way of playing and if it doesn't work he'll continue trying to force it. At least if Matthews has a bad game, he's still winning draws, playing good defense, and the other team has to play around his shot. If he can't shoot, he plays netfront and finds ways to be useful. On his good days you get a 12+ mil player that can score at will and forces other teams to adapt to him, on his bad days you get a 7-8mil generic 1C. If Marner's bad day floor was essentially Nylander, I don't think he'd draw complaints. Fine the puck isn't going in, but he's driving the transition and making smart simple passes in the offensive zone. Instead of that his bad days are a Kyle Wellwood doing a bad Kane impression.

 

[Gary Nylund]

Marner's 5v5 playoff underlying numbers are absolutely insane. His line has pretty much been a mismatch for anyone the last two years on two decent defensive teams.

You'd think that if those numbers are that good, surely they'd translate into actual production at some point, strange that this hasn't happened (at least not yet).

That's a really weird thing to say. Technically, if you've ever played at a high level, skating efficiency is crucial to handling minutes and I think we'd all agree that Marner is a terrific skater. Anecdotally smaller guys like Marner and Kane seem to do fine with more ice and Marner gets more than Matthews and seems to handle it just fine.

Gilmour was a great skater too, he ran out of gas for us in the playoffs as well.

 

[Gabriel426]

Both sides of the Marner spectrum are stuck in a misunderstanding.
Marner “haters” aren’t saying he was dominated. Their arguments are about how an 11 m dollar player can’t convert his chances.
Marner “stans” aren’t saying Marner was perfect, they are saying he wasn’t totally shit.

The answer is in between both arguements

isn’t that always the case when it comes to discussion on sports forum, lol.
Marner is a great player, he just needs to have good playoffs. Actually all he needs is Leafs winning the Cup, then most would careless if he remains goalless in the playoffs or the value of his contract or he scores 12 goals in the playoffs.

 

[Zybalto]

Both sides of the Marner spectrum are stuck in a misunderstanding.
Marner “haters” aren’t saying he was dominated. Their arguments are about how an 11 m dollar player can’t convert his chances.
Marner “stans” aren’t saying Marner was perfect, they are saying he wasn’t totally shit.

The answer is in between both arguements

The focus on him is wrong in the first place TBH. It's like asking what the difference was between Marner/Matthews/Nylander scoring 31 points in their last playoff 12 games and not winning a round and Point/Kucherov/Stamkos scoring 30 in their last 12, beating out the Isles in the semis and winning the cup. There are answers to that question and none of them really involve Marner. Both teams top scorers were up against good D's and an overlap in goaltenders.

You'd think that if those numbers are that good, surely they'd translate into actual production at some point, strange that this hasn't happened (at least not yet).

Not so strange when you look at goaltending, injuries and depth under/over achievement.....and a crazy small sample size of 12 games (if we're talking 2 years). It's what makes the Leafs such a wildcard this year. How good are they going to be with some actual advantages in these areas. Anything can happen in the playoffs...

 

[Lightsol]

Why don't we just trade Marner for Christian Dvorak? According to Suzuki, Montreal would be ripped off by such a trade...

 

[Gabriel426]

The focus on him is wrong in the first place TBH. It's like asking what the difference was between Marner/Matthews/Nylander scoring 31 points in their last playoff 12 games and not winning a round and Point/Kucherov/Stamkos scoring 30 in their last 12, beating out the Isles in the semis and winning the cup. There are answers to that question and none of them really involve Marner. Both teams top scorers were up against good D's and an overlap in goaltenders.



Not so strange when you look at goaltending, injuries and depth under/over achievement.....and a crazy small sample size of 12 games (if we're talking 2 years). It's what makes the Leafs such a wildcard this year. How good are they going to be with some actual advantages in these areas. Anything can happen in the playoffs...

Marner/AM/Willie last 12 playoff games were in the first round while Stamkos/Point/Kuch were the Finals and Conf Finals.
That’s a huge difference even if some of the games were played against the same team.
I will admit some of the criticisms toward Marner and AM are overblown but they didn’t do well in the past two playoffs. They(Superstars and Leaders) need to be the best players on the team and the best players in the series, if they are the best players on the team but are not the best players in the series, that’s understandable bc the other team top players are better. However, Marner and AM were far from being the best players for the Leafs over the past two playoffs.

Enough with the excuses, the Leafs need to get it done. If they(all the Leafs players) start making excuses for not advancing, they will always have excuses. It is like a friend of mine who will always have excuses for not working out in the gym, ranging from stuck at work to got the wrong shampoo.

 

[Gary Nylund]

Not so strange when you look at goaltending, injuries and depth under/over achievement.....and a crazy small sample size of 12 games (if we're talking 2 years). It's what makes the Leafs such a wildcard this year. How good are they going to be with some actual advantages in these areas. Anything can happen in the playoffs...

In Marner's case I'm talking 3 years but WE. Seems like the Leafs are a wild card every year but you're right, anything can happen in the playoffs, we have a lot of talent so you never know, this could be the year (as I've been saying for a number of years now haha). I'm not exactly overflowing with optimism though considering we're probably weaker on D with the loss of Bogo, probably weaker on offence with the loss of Hyman and goaltending one one hand could be better, it's also a big question mark and IMHO, goaltending is certainly not the reason we lost the last two playoffs. Our forward depth in particular is uninspiring, our bottom 6 could get ugly to say the least.

There is one area where I think we could hope for huge improvement and that is Marner. All that talent ... but then, a few people here are telling me that Marner has actually been great in the playoffs. I don't agree with that myself but if it is true, then we can't hope for any improvement in that area either. We'll see.

 

[Dekes For Days]

it looks like the two big stars for us and EDM played a lot more than any other forwards so while it's possible that it's just a co-indidence that they all had poor numbers, it seems fishy to me.

I mean, Draisaitl had 5 points in 4 games. That's not exactly poor. Scheifele had higher TOI/GP than both Matthews and Marner and went point per game. That's not poor. Marner was also down around 20 minutes in 2018-2019, and you still call his production then poor. You're going to be able to find examples either way; this isn't evidence of anything.

For the record, McDavid's (and Draisaitl's) ice time is so high because he played almost 46 minutes in the final game of their series that went to 3OT, not because they were running him into the ground throughout the series. Similarly, Marner played more in the OT games and the 1st game where Tavares went down early. Marner played 37.1% of the team's ice time in the regular season, and 39.6% of the team's ice time in the playoffs. That's really not as significant of a difference as you're making it out to be, and there's nothing to suggest that it's the cause of the lesser production. If anything, it would be the other way around.

It also seems obvious that a smaller guy like Marner probably can't handle the same number of minutes as a big guy like Matthews.

I'm not sure why you think size is relevant. For the record, the two highest TOI seasons in the entire cap era are by Martin St Louis.

Do you think all the other teams are making a mistake by not playing their stars more?

It really comes down to the situations your team finds itself in.

 

[Gary Nylund]

Marner played 37.1% of the team's ice time in the regular season, and 39.6% of the team's ice time in the playoffs. That's really not as significant of a difference as you're making it out to be, and there's nothing to suggest that it's the cause of the lesser production. If anything, it would be the other way around.

I don't know what the bolded means, I guess these stats are a bit too "advanced" for me. As far as significant difference between regular season and playoffs goes, I don't think I ever said that was a thing. I don't think it's unreasonable to play your stars more in the playoffs, I just think they should play much less during the season than Marner did, that way maybe they won't be running on fumes when the playoffs start and that's the real issue (Marner's production dropping off big time in the playoffs for three years running). But in any case, you think Marner's been fine in the playoffs and I don't so finding common ground here is going to be tough.

The biggest question mark with this team is that they seem to not show up at all in series deciding games. Throw all the numbers at me you like, the ones that matter are 0-4 in the last 4 years and outscored 18-6 in those 4 games, 11-2 in the last 3. I watched all those games and I'm sorry to say, we sucked. It's not all Marner's fault of course but he gets a bigger chunk of it then most of our players IMO.

 

[Mugzy97]

Suzuki trolling Marner as per Michael Traikos twitter.

He stated he thought Dvorak was better than Marner in his final OHL season. He can’t be serious.

 

[hamzarocks]

Suzuki trolling Marner as per Michael Traikos twitter.

He stated he thought Dvorak was better than Marner in his final OHL season. He can’t be serious.

Even if that were true, which most wouldn't agree with, I have to ask the obvious question... who cares? How is that relevant besides Suzuki using a team rival player who his team beat in the playoffs name to get some people listening to what he says.

It's been 5+ years since then, Dvorak has been a 40-50 point center basically during his best years as a player in the NHL, while marner a 90-100 point player.

Dvorak is older, yet hasn't shown the ability to be able to produce at a solid 2C level player. Suzuki brings up an irrelevant and outdated comparison as Dvorak's production and role as a star player at the OHL level hasn't translated to the NHL over a significant sample.

Dvorak breaking out now would becoming a strong 2C who can give 30G and 30A to the team

Marner if he has a down year will be a ppg+ winger who is better defensively than a guy like Dvorak. If Suzuki wants to challenge marner, he should have said he himself is going to be better than Marner this year instead of baiting with a new teammate

 

[Willchel Marlynder]

I'm kind of in the same mind psychologically. As much as I dislike the greedy kid I'm not going to flame him and disrespect him on Twitter or Instagram. I do legit hope he has a big year and shuts me up for the sake of the team, but saying that he could score 150 points and it wouldn't matter one bit if he folds up like a cheap tent again come playoff time.

Blank slate Mitch ... perform in the playoffs or you and your GM buddy are gone.

Glad to see he's back on Social. Can't lie for some reason that video got me pumped. While I was so disappointed and furious with Mitch over the past two post seasons, I was also one of his bigger Stans here during his final OHL year.

The bad post seasons, the overpayments, it's all done. Not much can be changed now. Just get the job done. Period.