Player Discussion Mitch Marner, Yet Again

[notbias]

True - recent performance is much less relevant than career. That's why Gretzky is still the best player available as FA.

Pointless and silly argument.

Ok, Marner is the most clutch player in the NHL, OT winner and then 2 points in the finals including setting up the game-winner, doesn't get much better than that, pay the man, those are his most recent results in big games.

 

[Confucius]

I think you are likely right that it will be a shorter-term, but it will be with the Leafs. The team will ultimately cave to whatever number/term gets him under contract. There is no circumstance under which they will let him walk.

What if you knew you could get McDavid the following season. Save the cap space and roll the dice, unless we get a deal too good to refuse.

 

[Evilhomer]

What if you knew you could get McDavid the following season. Save the cap space and roll the dice, unless we get a deal too good to refuse.

This isn't the NBA. The Leafs aren't going to let one of the best players in the league walk for nothing on the tiny probability that McDavid may be available a year later.

 

[Leaf Fans]

This isn't the NBA. The Leafs aren't going to let one of the best players in the league walk for nothing on the tiny probability that McDavid may be available a year later.

Probably not, but Marner may choose to leave on his own accord.

 

[Confucius]

This isn't the NBA. The Leafs aren't going to let one of the best players in the league walk for nothing on the tiny probability that McDavid may be available a year later.

But what if you knew you could get mcjesus and cap space isn’t nothing.
Nothing would be, Mitch moves on but we still have his cap hit.

 

[Hellcat]

The idea that just because a player doesn't get paid extra for the playoffs they don't factor in to his value is wild. The ignorance of some fans is astounding.

If I asked you to draw a line between two dots do you think you could do it?

So if the pay is only for the regular season can a player simply refuse to play any playoff games because he is not getting paid for it

Yep.

 

[The Shadow]

Probably not, but Marner may choose to leave on his own accord.

If it’s a first round loss the fans will lose it and I can see Marner being driven out

 

[francis246]

This isn't the NBA. The Leafs aren't going to let one of the best players in the league walk for nothing on the tiny probability that McDavid may be available a year later.

The decision is really out of the leafs hands. Marner is the one with UFA status, so unless he really wants to stay and the leafs are aware of that, he pretty much holds all the cards.

 

[notDatsyuk]

If I asked you to draw a line between two dots do you think you could do it?

The shortest distance between two puns is a straight line.

The decision is really out of the leafs hands. Marner is the one with UFA status, so unless he really wants to stay and the leafs are aware of that, he pretty much holds all the cards.

Exactly - another Dubas Disaster.

 

[The Shadow]

Just like Vladdy he should have been extended last summer before the price went up

 

[francis246]

The shortest distance between two puns is a straight line.


Exactly - another Dubas Disaster.

Agreed, it’s a shame that Dubas and Shanny decided to spend the 2023 off season arguing over control instead of making a move. I’ve posted the Jonas seigal article a few times but Marner had prepared for 2023 to be his last as a leaf. There is no question in my mind that he believed he was getting traded after the Florida series. Leafs really missed the mark there. We could have made a really solid trade to help balance out the line up. I know we wanted him gone after MTL, but I think his value was definitely higher after Florida. Montreal was bad bad.

But what do I know? I’m just a Marner mouthpiece.

 

[banks]

What is your walk away number for Marner ?

I wouldn't flinch to pay him in the 12-13 range. I think the number will land below Matthews' 13.25 million.

I don't see how his camp can make a case for 14. So somewhere between 13 and 14 is where I'd consider walking away. But there's lots I don't know with the cap increases coming up.

 

[Divine]

The Leafs may finally be forced to walk away from him, which is great.

I think Marner is going to realize his value around the league isn’t what he thinks it is.

 

[banks]

The Leafs may finally be forced to walk away from him, which is great.

I think Marner is going to realize his value around the league isn’t what he thinks it is.

It's not his value around the league that's important. It's his value to just one GM.

If Marner just wants money, then he'll have no problem finding one GM desperate for talent that will pay him what he wants. 'Value around the league' be darned.

 

[Divine]

It's not his value around the league that's important. It's his value to just one GM.

If Marner just wants money, then he'll have no problem finding one GM desperate for talent that will pay him what he wants. 'Value around the league' be darned.

That’s fine, but it’ll be difficult to win overpaying your players.

I’d walk away from him. Get someone who can score goals. Get multiple goal scorers. Everyone assumes we’d be a worst team without Marner, maybe, but maybe not.

I would offer him to Carolina for Rantanen retained. If Rantanen doesn’t want to sign there it would at least give us some time to determine if he would fit better here. Otherwise, look for value players and go for short term contracts and see what happens with McDavid’s UFA.

 

[Gary Nylund]

I know we wanted him gone after MTL, but I think his value was definitely higher after Florida. Montreal was bad bad.

But what do I know? I’m just a Marner mouthpiece.

You think Marner as a pending UFA has more trade value than Marner under contract for 4 years? Seriously?

Yes Montreal was "bad bad", 4 points in 7 games is unimpressive to put it mildly. The last two series Marner's played he has 6 points in 14 games, would you care to explain how 6 points in 14 games is a marked improvement over 4 points in 7 games?

You're not making any sense here whatsoever.

 

[banks]

...

I’d walk away from him. Get someone who can score goals. Get multiple goal scorers. Everyone assumes we’d be a worst team without Marner, maybe, but maybe not.

...

I don't think you can get multiple goalscorers with that money as easily as you think. People are suggesting Brock Boeser gets 8.5 or 9 on his next deal. He's hit 40 goals once, never over 30 any other year. Are we better with him and a 3-4 million guy? I doubt it.

Back in the day VanRiemsdyk and Bozak made 8 mill combined when the cap was 70 million. It was like %12 of the Cap. If Mitch extends for 13, with the cap next year at 95.5, that's %13.6 of the cap.

Would you pick Marner, or the next Bozak JVR cobo? And before you say "those guys were overpaid" they both got raises elsewhere when they left.

 

[Divine]

I don't think you can get multiple goalscorers with that money as easily as you think. People are suggesting Brock Boesser gets 8.5 or 9 on his next deal. He's hit 40 goals once, never over 30 any other year. Are we better with him and a 3-4 million guy? I doubt it.

Back in the day VanRiemsdyke and Bozak made 8 mill combined when the cap was 70 million. It was like %12 of the Cap. If Mitch extends for 13, with the cap next year at 95.5, that's %13.6 of the cap.

Would you pick Marner, or the next Bozak JVR cobo? And before you say "those guys were overpaid" they both got raises elsewhere when they left.

No, I would not pick Marner over that. I am not a Marner fan boy though. I do not want to give someone a raise for winning one round with this team.

We walked away from Dubas for asking for a raise for a single playoff round victory. We should do the same with Marner. I'd rather try two 20 goal scorers than Marner again. We already know what results we are going to get with Marner and it won't be a Stanley Cup.

If you like looking at him play, sure, but if your goal is to win a Stanley Cup paying Marner as much as Draisaitl who's contract hasn't even gone into effect yet makes absolutely no sense.

Every year we play teams with less 'talent' than us, and every year we lose to them. How about we try the 'less talent' but better team method for once?

 

[Gary Nylund]

I don't think you can get multiple goalscorers with that money as easily as you think. People are suggesting Brock Boesser gets 8.5 or 9 on his next deal. He's hit 40 goals once, never over 30 any other year. Are we better with him and a 3-4 million guy? I doubt it.

Back in the day VanRiemsdyke and Bozak made 8 mill combined when the cap was 70 million. It was like %12 of the Cap. If Mitch extends for 13, with the cap next year at 95.5, that's %13.6 of the cap.

Would you pick Marner, or the next Bozak JVR cobo? And before you say "those guys were overpaid" they both got raises elsewhere when they left.

Against WSH in 6 playoff games Bozak had 4 points, JVR had 3. Last two series Marner played, he had 3 points in 7 games so a Bozak/JVR combo would have been a massive improvement.

 

[Fogelhund]

Let's just move on from him crowd..... We can replace him with two 20 goals scorers...

looks at UFA's

RW (Outside of Marner and Rantanen)

Reilly Smith - on pace for 14 goals this year, 40 points. 34 before the end of this season.
Patrick Kane - on pace for 20 goals, 53 points, 36 years old
Mantha... on IR after 13 games. scored 20 goals once in the last 5 years
Armia on pace for 14 goals, 32 by the start of next season

LW

Ehlers, on pace for 27 goals, projected $7.5 mil x 6 years
Mangiapane on pace for 16 goals.
Hall on pace for 13 goals, cooked
Kuzmenko on pace for 8 goals.
Zucker, Greenway, Skinner

It looks like the best combination you could get, would be Ehlers + Kane. If you miss on those guys, it's Smith + Mangiapane.

 

[Divine]

Let's just move on from him crowd..... We can replace him with two 20 goals scorers...

looks at UFA's

RW (Outside of Marner and Rantanen)

Reilly Smith - on pace for 14 goals this year, 40 points. 34 before the end of this season.
Patrick Kane - on pace for 20 goals, 53 points, 36 years old
Mantha... on IR after 13 games. scored 20 goals once in the last 5 years
Armia on pace for 14 goals, 32 by the start of next season

LW

Ehlers, on pace for 27 goals, projected $7.5 mil x 6 years
Mangiapane on pace for 16 goals.
Hall on pace for 13 goals, cooked
Kuzmenko on pace for 8 goals.
Zucker, Greenway, Skinner

It looks like the best combination you could get, would be Ehlers + Kane. If you miss on those guys, it's Smith + Mangiapane.

That's fine. Sign them to one year deals and wait for McDavid. I've never seen such a strong affinity to losing.

Paying our top 3 players 40% of the cap has not resulted in any sort of success... so the logical thing is to keep doing it and give them all raises and hope we can get some league min. players to score playoff games for us when the Big 3 are locked down?

Your team is much easier to defend when you have 3 good players and the rest of the team has to be filled with scrubs because you have no cap. Logically, the playoff strategy will always be just double team their 3 players and let the guy who scores 10 goals a season beat us. You can change that with depth, but people hate the idea of the possibility of doing anything different.

 

[Dekes For Days]

So the fact that our team scores 2.76g/gp in the playoffs vs. 3.61g/gp regular season (past three seasons) is normal because the leafs continue to get "goalied" in the playoffs, vs the Oilers scoring at a rate of 3.67g/gp in the playoffs vs 3.68g/gp regular season (past three seasons) because they somehow face worse goaltending in the playoffs vs. regular season? Is that the narrative you're going with? I'm just talking about goals, not points as you are, since we are talking about goals and SV%. Edmonton scores at a slightly higher rate in the playoffs vs. our group falling off a cliff.

I'm not using the sample size you are just for the sake of not investing a lot of time into this. However, three full regular seasons and playoffs should be enough of a sample size to see that something isn't working quite right with this group. The past three years they have been abysmal together post season, posting a combined 16 goals in 25 playoff games. Thats what 24M gets you in the post season, .64g/gp? McDavid does .70g/gp on his own! Yet somehow people are trying to justify paying 13+mil for Marner. It simply doesn't compute for me, and this excuse of "The leafs face the best goaltending in the league every year" is getting old, because it just isn't true. Maybe our mix of guys makes it *appear* as though they are facing the best goaltending in the league every year.

I'm not sure why you're suddenly isolating goals when the discussion was point production relative to the goaltending teams face. I'm also not sure why you think the sample changes your time investment, when everything you posted is easily searchable on NHL.com and would just require putting in a different starting point. I'm also not sure why you'd expect 25 games to be enough to normalize a rare event like goals for everybody on the team. Sometimes, players rely more on their goalscoring, and sometimes players rely more on their playmaking. Goalie impacts are also not going to be equally distributed across all players in a sample like that. I'm also not sure where you got your numbers. McDavid has put up 0.49 G/GP over the past 3 playoffs, and 0.50 G/GP over his career, not 0.70.

In the regular season over the past 3 years, Toronto and Edmonton have produced similarly at 3.61 and 3.67 G/GP respectively, and have faced similar goaltending (0.896 and 0.897), because experiences are much more similar in the regular season. In the playoffs, Edmonton has been able to maintain that rate by facing 0.888 goaltending, while Toronto drops down to 2.76 G/GP because the goaltending they faced was quite a bit better than the regular season at 0.915. Even while facing 0.915 goaltending (still better than almost all of the top 20 faced through their careers), Matthews and Marner have been able to produce 1.04 and 1.00 P/GP, which would rank them 9th and 12th among active players on the all time list. Far from "abysmal". And if we isolate a sample like the two Tampa series where they faced similar 0.887 goaltending, they put up 1.38 and 1.46 P/GP. That would rank them 2nd and 4th.

Facing the goaltending we have isn't "normal". You can see that yourself. But our star players producing like they have considering the goaltending they've faced is "normal", if not impressive. I don't know why any of this is surprising to you, or why it is so hard for you to accept the caliber of goaltending we've faced. We have faced some of the best goalies of the modern era, with stacked trophy cases full of Vezinas, Cups, Harts, Jennings, etc. Almost all of them have backstopped their teams to cups and/or cup finals. Most of these guys have career playoff SV%s near the top of the all-time list, so it's not just us. Holtby career 0.926... Rask career 0.925... Vasilevsky career 0.920 and critical to two cup wins... Price career 0.919... Swayman career 0.922... Even Korpisalo is a career 0.922, and has the all-time playoff save record (and not against us). We have repeatedly seen the goaltending we face do the same or worse to the next teams they face... If you want to believe that everybody on our team - a good conversion team over a massive sample - and everybody on a bunch of other teams are just simultaneously struggling to convert all on their own when they just happen to face the same goalies around the same time, that's your choice, but it's unrealistic. These players are going to experience easier situations at some point and explode in scoring, just as they have before. I'm hoping that it's to help Toronto win a cup, not some other team.

 

[ToneDog]

What if you knew you could get McDavid the following season. Save the cap space and roll the dice, unless we get a deal too good to refuse.

You are thinking outside the box. That is not allowed at MLSEL. Do not upset the apple cart at all costs is their M.O.

 

[Fogelhund]

That's fine. Sign them to one year deals and wait for McDavid. I've never seen such a strong affinity to losing.

Paying our top 3 players 40% of the cap has not resulted in any sort of success... so the logical thing is to keep doing it and give them all raises and hope we can get some league min. players to score playoff games for us when the Big 3 are locked down?

Your team is much easier to defend when you have 3 good players and the rest of the team has to be filled with scrubs because you have no cap. Logically, the playoff strategy will always be just double team their 3 players and let the guy who scores 10 goals a season beat us. You can change that with depth, but people hate the idea of the possibility of doing anything different.

What a world this has become, when people attribute "affinity" to a discussion, and have to label people, instead of having a logical discussion.

The logical thing to do, is ice the best team you can. If we look at the alternatives to Marner, and say, ya that could be better, you go that route. If you look at the alternatives, and say.. man, that' dog crap... maybe you stay the course, even if it hasn't yielded the results some fans want.

We all understand the strengths and weaknesses of our current setup, but it should be logical to understand what the alternatives are, instead of throwing out the bath water blindly.

I proposed trades moving Marner last offseason.. I'm not married to the idea of keeping him... but I don't say... let's just let him walk, or just let Tavares walk... without looking at what the alternative options are.

For those who want to walk away from him, have an intelligent conversation about it... who are the replacements that make us better, and what if we miss out?

And this.. hey, we will just wait for McDavid idea.... when according to our fanbase we will lose in the First round repeatedly, while they go on deeper runs.... why sign for the team that doesn't do as well? It's a unfounded fantasy.

 

[ToneDog]

That's fine. Sign them to one year deals and wait for McDavid. I've never seen such a strong affinity to losing.

Paying our top 3 players 40% of the cap has not resulted in any sort of success... so the logical thing is to keep doing it and give them all raises and hope we can get some league min. players to score playoff games for us when the Big 3 are locked down?

Your team is much easier to defend when you have 3 good players and the rest of the team has to be filled with scrubs because you have no cap. Logically, the playoff strategy will always be just double team their 3 players and let the guy who scores 10 goals a season beat us. You can change that with depth, but people hate the idea of the possibility of doing anything different.

And when one has a tummy ache or headache, they are even easier to defend. Especially when not one can step up and impose his will. I guess 8 years of failure is not enough for some Leafs fans. Let's invest another $125m in this core and f*** ourselves for the next 8 years. Hell of a strategy.