Player Discussion Mitch Marner, Yet Again

[Gabriel426]

Been interesting reading the analysis of the last 3 playoffs and Marner's place within it.

Everything seems to be centered around playoff drop-offs and whatnot and its a fair point of course but I've always been most interested in REL numbers on a team myself. Just how good were you compared to your teammates. You have to play in front of the same goaltending and against the same goalies....and how do you stack up in your role compared with others.

Starting on a huge weakness for the Leafs, the powerplay, there are the 62 forwards with 50+ minutes on the powerplay in the playoffs the last three years and here are the g/60 on the PP for the 4 Leafs rankings and a few other notable names. I included REL numbers in brackets after to show the difference between the team average and the player involved:

2. McDavid: 13.78 (+7.93)
3. Draisaitl: 13.77 (+7.89)
5. MacKinnon: 13.48 (+7.41)
20. Pasta: 10.07 (-0.01)
29. Kucherov: 8.99 (+4.92)
32. Nylander: 8.25 (+4.76)
34. Ovi: 8.12 (-5.36)
44. Matthews: 7.23 (+3.75)
50. Tavares: 6.72 (+3.69)
51. Marner: 6.69 (+3.63)
52. Tkachuk: 6.56 (+1.08)
53. Kaprizov: 6.52 (+1.91)
58. Reinhart: 5.15 (-1.45)
61. Barkov: 4.96 (-1.91)

Not a surprise seeing the Oiler duo so high but it is interesting that the biggest drag on a PP out of any of these guys was Ovi. The Leafs poor PP seems to be driven by the fact the 2nd unit may be the most absymal squad assembled the last 3 years and the worst one overall of any contender has been the Panthers (yea, worse than the Leafs). Despite the fact the Leafs big four have good REL numbers, we really do expect more from them, despite the useless 2nd squad. If you want to hang your hat on some Marner hate, here ya go. With more time and space, Marner wasnt nearly as good. Inexcusable.


Switching to 5v5 is where things get interesting. I'm going to get less specific with the numbers and look at rankings of different things here (and to save me putting all the numbers in lol).

Looking at the 88 forwards with 300+ minutes, here are how the Leafs big 4 forwards ranked for goals for/60:

16. Marner
29. Matthews
57. Nylander
63. Tavares

Marner certainly comes out looking better here and might seem a little shocking to some.

Lets check out fewest goals against/60:

9. Marner
29. Matthews
41. Tavares
64. Nylander

Marner looking even more impressive here shows his dominance as one fo the best defensive wingers in the league.

Hows that look for overall 5v5 goal differential ranking:

6. Marner
21. Matthews
60. Tavares
67. Nylander

I think one of the worst takes I saw floating around here during the 4 nations was people spouting off the 0 IQ take that Marner was somehow a bad 5v5 player, despite him being one of the most dominant playoff 5v5 guys. Don't ever trust a word of anyone who started spewing that "time and space" crap. It's literally been his best attribute.

Shifting to 5v5 REL, things really get enlightening. Gonna throw in first place as its kinda cool plus the actual numbers:

1. McDavid: +23.36%
2. Marner: +22.32%
8. Matthews: +15.84%
48: Tavares: -1.00%
57. Nylander: -3.91%

Just think its awesome that the 2 guys that closed out the 4 nations are actually the 2 most important 5v5 guys in the playoffs as well. Was just fitting. All the Leafs big 4 move up of course. considering how awful some of bottom sixers were in the playoffs. Feel free to blame the cap structure I guess but thats just another thing McDavid and Marner have in common really. I think its more down to picking bad bottom sixers. If any of the big 4 have really been disappointments, I think Marner looks the least guilty here.

If I had to rank the Leafs big 4 forwards by their value in the playoffs, it seems quite easy:

1. Marner
2. Matthews
3. Nylander
4. Tavares

One might hope that Marners numbers were not so frontloaded in series but the big issue is not that he isnt doing it all the time, its more that he's the guy getting them to the big games and then no one finishes them.

Having arguably the worst goaltending out of any contender over this stretch isnt an argument either. Campbell and Samsonov are pretty meh no? Hope Stolarz is the man this run.

Marner is a deal we all hope should get done and Tavares is to me the guy we should wait and see on. I have no doubt he wants to stay and despite the numbers, has made a couple of clutch plays in the playoffs. Lets see if he earns that new contract.

Enough rambling for now. Was just bored yall. I know its an acid trip in here so dont be too hard on me lol.

And yet the Leafs only won ONE series in the last three playoffs.

So what does that say about our top guys?
It means they are not good enough collectively.

 

[keonsbitterness]

Yep.

An expiring contract runs until June 30 even though the salary is paid in full as of game 82. A player skipping the playoffs would almost certainly be subject to breach of contract penalties. Doubt we ever find out the nature of those penalties.

 

[ULF_55]

A few giveaways but nice winner, and nice use of the screen on his first goal.

 

[Commander Clueless]

The best argument in favor of keeping Marner is that Ovechkin eventually broke through. Thing is though, that argument is incredibly stupid.

I think the best argument for keeping Marner is that management already made this decision by not trading him when they had the chance.

Letting a player like Marner walk and replacing him with... What, exactly?....is awful and he knows it.

 

[Mentat]

Trade him while his value is high.
Mitch is not a PO performer and his next AAV demand (bar some miracle) is going to be very steep.
I´ve had enough of overpayed superstars that produce little to nothing come crunch time.
Flame on!

 

[leafs in five]

pretty cool

 

[leafs in five]

shades of what Nylander did to Swayman in game 6 last year

 

[Zybalto]

And yet the Leafs only won ONE series in the last three playoffs.

So what does that say about our top guys?
It means they are not good enough collectively.

Considering it's a team sport, look at everything no?

Thats 4 series total. Nylander and Matthews were both injured in last years series and with both still having really stoing points overall, it's fair to say Tavares has been the weakest of the 4. Put him aside.

Have the big 3 been more of an issue than the play of starting goaltending? Campbell and Samsonov (who was pulled in 2 of the 4 series) are arguably the worst starting goalies of any contender over that stretch.

...and thats despite both team D numbers for both shots against and xGA being above average.

How about bottom 6 play? Anyone stand out down there? Part of the reason the REL numbers go up is because the stars on the team are playing better in their roles than the bottom 6. I guess to be expected with top 6 cap but no stepped up in any big way either.

So with poor goaltending, poor bottom 6 and Tavares being glaringly bigger issues than the rest of the big 4 and then you throw in the fact last years injury riddled team somehow even making it to 7 games, why the fascination with Marner? It's like a fever dream in these threads. If you really want to make a massive breakdown of good a bad over the last 3 years, Marner is certainly on good list and yet has probably received over half the critical attacks.

Dubas big problem was never that he signed anyone to any deals IMO.

It was that he failed to provide any real support in the goaltending/bottom six department. Too many soft no shows mixed with goalies who don't have a memorable save any can recall.

You can talk about cap here too I guess but that opens cans of worms involving covid and it's not like almost any support player lived up to their smaller cap hits anyways.

With every lost series for years being so close (except 1) let's see what so far regular season gamers like McMann, Lorentz and especially Stolarz can do for us this year. As far as I'm concerned, Marner playing the exact same gives us a real chance to win and I can't say that about a lot of players on the team.

Hell, McDavid and Drai were 2 of the top 5 players in the world and both good playoff guys and couldn't even make it to the show/make any progress as a team....cause their team was holding them back.

Let's see if the Leafs finally have an actual playoff team this year. Feel like goaltending is the best in years which is a start.....

 

[DarkKnight]

A few giveaways but nice winner, and nice use of the screen on his first goal.

View attachment 983129

That's a ridiculous amount of ice time for a forward, has to be a season high.

 

[BraveCanadian]

That's a ridiculous amount of ice time for a forward, has to be a season high.

Guy is a stud but they should tone it down before he wears out

 

[Gary Nylund]

I think the best argument for keeping Marner is that management already made this decision by not trading him when they had the chance.

Letting a player like Marner walk and replacing him with... What, exactly?....is awful and he knows it.

That's a good argument for predicting that the Leafs would like to sign Marner, it's not a good argument for saying that it's a smart thing to do.

 

[Commander Clueless]

That's a good argument for predicting that the Leafs would like to sign Marner, it's not a good argument for saying that it's a smart thing to do.

Fair enough, though I think there's an argument that reversing course on that decision now and losing him for nothing might be unsmart.

 

[Mess]

Giving credit where credit is due.

Mitch Marner double dips to help Leafs win.

Those are not words one hears or sees very often, so I'm documenting it in his personnel file.

Now that would be nice if Leaf fans could say that more often come playoff time, when it really matters most.

 

[Zybalto]

Mitch Marner's last 4 overtimes:

 

[Dekes For Days]

Or maybe he wasn't as effective against hard forechecking teams that run/screen the front of the net vs. two teams that relied on transition primarily to drive offense?

This just suggests that not only have you not watched the goals, you don't know how any of these teams actually play. You're just making random guesses to maintain your narrative. For the record, Boston was the most rush-heavy team by far, and we were all around the net, and had the second closest average shot distance. As for this idea that Bobrovsky is somehow uniquely strong against our style of play, that doesn't pass the sniff test either. Bobrovsky has an 0.889 SV% against the Leafs in the Matthews era, and was 0.841 against us in 2022-2023. I don't know why it's so hard for you to accept that sometimes, goalies just play well.

Sure, all these goalies just round into form for our series and then "cool off" after or "heat up" prior.

Except that's not what happens. Rask had a worse SV% against us in 2018 than against Tampa, and a worse SV% against us in 2019 than against Carolina and Columbus. Korpisalo set the all-time playoff save record in 2020 against Tampa, not us. Price had a worse SV% against us in 2021 than against Winnipeg and Vegas. Vasilevsky had a worse SV% against us in 2022 than against Florida and NYR and Colorado, and had the 2nd worst SV% of his playoff career against us in 2023. Bobrovsky had a worse SV% against us in 2023 than against Carolina.

In fact, if you took the weighted average of the career playoff SV%s of the goalies we faced, it would be almost identical at 0.921. These goalies are good all on their own, and did what they did to us to a lot of teams, both in the years they faced us, and through their careers.

You aren't acknowledging any facts I put up, just crafting your narrative around it, as usual.

I've acknowledged everything you said, and explained the flaws in your argument. You know, a couple months ago, we had a respectful back and forth, and you initiated this interaction by suggesting you had an "honest question". It's disappointing to see you unwilling to accept the honest, objective answer, and attack me instead.

My whole argument is our guys (maybe the system) isn't as effective, and it makes goalies look superior when they aren't.

But there's no real legitimate argument that it's about the individual. It is a team wide shift, where the star players actually contribute a higher proportion than usual. Your best argument would be against the system, but not only is there very little to support that argument, even if it was true, it wouldn't justify removing our best players.