Willy been our best player the last couple years so this imaginary slotting or better yet the wrong slotting is the issue in my opinion marner is your third most complete offensive player
Mitch Marner, Yet Again
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I don’t think it’s imaginary slotting. It means the failure of the team is a direct result of Matthews and Marner and nothing else, nobody else.
Agree but that’s on us to separate the two of them first and then have marner do what he does best in a secondary role which is make his line mates better
And when we separate him from Matthews, he becomes invisible.
What kind of 13-14M player needs another 13M forward to look decent?
I think Bennett has the same agent as Marner, if so, no chance at 7.5. Probably stays in Florida anyhow imho.
I think the take away is we move on from Marner and Matthews. Both those guys suck as a duo and as individuals.
We’ve literally moved out everything else. It just come down to 34 and 16.
Matthews was noticeable today.
Matthews at least has shown us what he can become. A 69 goal scoring Selke finalist centre isn't a bad player to start with. The problem is the team around him is built wrong.
We have zero defenceman who can shoot a puck. We have a passer that wants 13M. Nylander is overpaid for what he is, but we can't change that now. Every good team has a scoring threat on D, we don't. We're paying Rielly like a star D when he isn't that.
Once again when Matthews isnt injured there’s few more dominant that he is that’s just a fact dont let recency bias cloud your judgment I agree though if marner is only really effective with time and space and with Matthews then he needs to go
Yet when Selke Marner was with Tavares, they looked like they might give up 5 ga. As Babcock once said.. a winger can fall asleep I'm the D zone because their responsibility is so limited.
Wingers just aren't nearly as important as a C.
Wasn’t there best showing for sure I would have kept jarny with jt and marner and left bobby with nylander would have been a better fit there the fastest players on the team
To be clear, marner is one of the top assist forwards.
Since: 2019-2020 season:
Last 5 years he's 5th. for assists.
That's great regular season production.
Draisaitl is 3rd. for assists over the same period, but he's also 2nd. for goals.
marner is 44th. for goals.
Draisaitl points: 638
Draisaitl signed for $14mm for 8 years.
maner points: 495
I can see $13mm being Toronto overpay.
Since: 2019-2020 season:
Last 5 years he's 5th. for assists.
That's great regular season production.
Draisaitl is 3rd. for assists over the same period, but he's also 2nd. for goals.
marner is 44th. for goals.
Draisaitl points: 638
Draisaitl signed for $14mm for 8 years.
maner points: 495
I can see $13mm being Toronto overpay.
There are players who will be available July 1st. that could replace marner. (Unless they are re-signed before end of year.)
The only unknown is whether they'd sign with the Leafs.
I’m coming to the conclusion Matthews isn’t a solution in Toronto. At the core he and Marner are the heart of the problems. Wholesale renovation of everything around them and persistence of issues tells me it’s them and them alone. You can have any random supporting cast around them but it’s always the same.
This is basically the opposite of the scientific method. This is we've tried nothing and it hasn't worked! Changing the 3rd line center that Matthews doesn't even play with isn't a valid method for determining he's the problem.
To figure out the problem, you slowly remove core players and find out if things change. The thing about Matthews is his game has no weakness aside from health. At his best, he's a strong goalscorer, he's a strong faceoff man, he's strong defensively and he can be physical and play in a physical series.
The problem is he's been surrounded by players with clear weaknesses and I think eventually he's like why do I have to be the only one who goes in on the forecheck, or hits, or cares defensively, etc. You put Matthews on Florida and he would shine. You need to build a team around him that plays the way you want him to play. The same way Calgary got tired of M. Tkachuk's antics yet Florida built a Cup winner around them.
What is clear right now is this core is the problem. That doesn't mean we got to get rid of every player in the core. How about we keep the 69 goal scoring Selke-finalist centre that we'll be dreaming about when we trade him?
We can start to explore the changes of the team when we hopefully walk away from the softest player of this core, Marner, this summer.
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Beta chokers.
I said it before a lot of Leafsnations kept saying Ovie, Yzerman, Sakic, Mack…were called chokers till they won… and AM, MM and Willie are young enough to still win.
While I remind them that Jumbo Joe, Marleau, Sedins, and Kariya never won.
I hope they can win for the Leafs but they just don’t have past exp to support that they can.
It doesn’t matter who Tre or any GMs bring in, as long as the core 5 can’t lead the Leafs, Leafs aint going nowhere in playoffs.
The problem with that is AM might be the problem?
He is the highest paid player in the league and Capt. If he doesn’t lead, as you said, forecheck, play defence….who else should do it?
He does it more than the rest of the core already. You can make Matthews a forechecker but then who's putting the puck in the net - Marner?
That's the problem. The team is built wrong and it's evident by people wanting arguably the best even-strength goalscorer of all time to be leading the forecheck instead of potting goals.
Even in the last minute, on dump ins Matthews is the one hustling to his corner to regain the puck. I don't get why people get this narrative that Matthews doesn't forecheck or take physical contact. Him and Tavares do it the most of the star players on this team.
Nylander is 50/50. He sometimes decides he wants to go into the boards, and the other half he'll just do that dumb circle back to avoid contact.
Marner - forget about it. You'll be lucky if he shoves the guy punching his teammate while he's on the ground.
HES INJURED are you that ignorant bro you can clearly see his patent wrist shot isnt happening move past that the problem is there’s someone in the room that thinks he’s as good or better and wants to be paid as such it’s hard to lead when there’s someone else in the room challenging you leading only problem is if he wasn’t injured we’d be talking about what we should be talkin about which is the other player who it looks like has become a distraction it’s only a couple games so I can be blowing that out of proportion but Matthews looked good today despite only scoring once marner and jt didnt look good today and that coincides with playing with marner every line he was on didnt look good today
Hes had a great season for sure but Matthews is a generational talent 60 % healthy Matthews is still a number one center though
Imagine how many points he can put up next year with Connor Bedard as his centre!
