Mitch Marner, Yet Again

[ACC1224]

Pretty sure one he had just got on the ice

Not sure but I didn't see that he was at fault for any goal against.
He was instrumental in the 2nd goal but wasn't on the ice when it was scored.

 

[arso40]

Not sure but I didn't see that he was at fault for any goal against.
He was instrumental in the 2nd goal but wasn't on the ice when it was scored.

@ACC1224 is the reason an @Antropovsky is born not @Dekes For Days cause acc seems like a sensible human being but then says things like this which are just silly marner had a negative effect on the game maybe not deserving of a dash 2 but he wasn’t a positive at all

 

[Gary Nylund]

It can be meaningful over the course of the entire season but certainly can lose context in an individual game.
Marner's -2 last night is a prime example.

Even over an entire season the stat is unreliable.

 

[Hellcat]

It seems likely at this point. I remember one poster saying he know this core didn't have it in them after JT's first game with us back in Long Island and he may have nailed it. We didn't compete, and that has carried over to multiple game 7's where it has seemed like the other team wanted it more.

Every spring I hope that this is the year where the core guys shows me that they have that WIM (wants it more) factor. Every spring I get disappointed and they don't have many more chances left.

What's annoying is one of these guys will eventually move on to an other team and we'll watch them win the cup in their first year with their new club... they got the talent, they dont got the stones.

Is Mitch the answer for playoff success? Probably not but finishing top 3 is better than finishing where Boston will finish with one legit super star and a bunch of Meh! players because of injury.

 

[arso40]

What's annoying is one of these guys will eventually move on to an other team and we'll watch them win the cup in their first year with their new club... they got the talent, they dont got the stones.

Is Mitch the answer for playoff success? Probably not but finishing top 3 is better than finishing where Boston will finish with one legit super star and a bunch of Meh! players because of injury.

We’d still have 2 and a better supporting cast marner isnt one of 2 superstars on this team

 

[Hellcat]

Even over an entire season the stat is unreliable.

Morgan Rielly is -19, when everyone else (except for Myers) is a -4 or better is kind of telling you a lot.

It's kinda silly to discount a stat because it requires context, +/- has value but needs to be used with other metrics to establish context. Players know their +/-, just like goalies know their W/L record, many fans on this forum would also say W/L record for goalies is meaningless. Both of those stats mean something to the players..

 

[thusk]

I just looked at it nylanders plus minus is better every other year with marner getting a 2 year period 2021-2023 one plays with matthews one doesn’t and that’s last years production we need to put to bed this narrative as well marner was a minus player twice and nylander was a minus player 3 times so yes they need to win their minutes for sure but marner last year was tied for 4th in scoring with a plus 1 which wouldn’t be bad if it wasn’t a total of 3 points 1 less than domi and bertuzzi who also played 7 games matthews who played 5 games and tied with nylander who only played 4 games and had all his points be the last 3 goals we scored as a team marner had 1 goal 2 assists I remember the goal came in a blow out where he did the through the legs deke they all need to bring it or be held accountable no favouritism

i didn't talk necessairly about plus minus but about overal impact... Nylander had 1 5v5 goal and like 4-5 assist outside mtl series against any top 6 line. That's hurt leafs because you need to adapt your strategy for it and your depht need to play against harder matchup and make harder to get depht production.

The Matthews-Bertuzzi-domi line who took a lot of dump penalty who cost a lot of goal for leafs, it's not +/- but that's really hurt leafs last year and one of biggest reason why leafs was trailing 3-1.

Start playing after 40 minute when you're trailing... it's not good enough even if you find a way to score later and finish with fine stats, playing 20 minute a game is just not good enough

Having 1 really good game every 3-4 game played even if you scored 5 pts in that game, it's not good enough.

A lot of thing need to be better and that's concerning everyone

 

[Hellcat]

We’d still have 2 and a better supporting cast marner isnt one of 2 superstars on this team

Injuries happen all the time, what is better 5 stars or 4 stars? Talent is something every team covets and Mitch is as talented as they come. You want more skill not less.

 

[arso40]

i didn't talk necessairly about plus minus but about overal impact... Nylander had 1 5v5 goal and like 4-5 assist outside mtl series against any top 6 line. That's hurt leafs because you need to adapt your strategy for it.

The Matthews-Bertuzzi-domi line who took a lot of dump penalty who cost a lot of goal for leafs, it's not +/- but that's really hurt leafs last year and one of biggest reason why leafs was trailing 3-1.

Start playing after 40 minute when you're trailing... it's not good enough even if you find a way to score later and finish with fine stats, playing 20 minute a game is just not good enough

Having 1 really good game every 3-4 game played even if you scored 5 pts in that game, it's not good enough.

A lot of thing need to be better and that's concerning everyone

Very good points actually I will say but have you ever thought that maybe the reason why we were down 3 one 1 is cause marner wasn’t producing away from matthews? I showed you matthews played 5 games and was injured marner played the whole 7 and still got out produced

 

[arso40]

Injuries happen all the time, what is better 5 stars or 4 stars? Talent is something every team covets and Mitch is as talented as they come. You want more skill not less.

Depending on the cost difference in the 4 stars vs the 5 stars if your paying for top end skill that’s not showing up you might want to have 4 instead

 

[Gary Nylund]

What's annoying is one of these guys will eventually move on to an other team and we'll watch them win the cup in their first year with their new club... they got the talent, they dont got the stones.

Is Mitch the answer for playoff success? Probably not but finishing top 3 is better than finishing where Boston will finish with one legit super star and a bunch of Meh! players because of injury.

Yeah maybe, but after they're gone I don't really care if they win or not. Except in rare cases, I was always a Kadri fan and was happy to see him win.

I don't think this core has ever finished top 3. IIRC we were 4th once, and usually finish about 6th but I get your point. That said, it's not impossible that Marner leaves, and we somehow bring in a couple of guys who play well in the playoffs and have more playoff success than this core has ever had. Not saying it's likely, just that you never know.

 

[Gary Nylund]

Morgan Rielly is -19, when everyone else (except for Myers) is a -4 or better is kind of telling you a lot.

It's kinda silly to discount a stat because it requires context, +/- has value but needs to be used with other metrics to establish context. Players know their +/-, just like goalies know their W/L record, many fans on this forum would also say W/L record for goalies is meaningless. Both of those stats mean something to the players..

Sometimes the number is a good indication of their play, sometimes it's way off. Remember Mark Fraser? Bottom line is like I said - plus/minus is NOT a reliable way of measuring player performance.

Now team performance, that's another story. Goal differential is why I said months ago that people were foolish to write off TB - they were way behind us in the standings but ahead of us in goal differential. Today we're tied for 6-7the and TB is right behind us in 8th and their goal differential is still substantially better than ours so watch out!

 

[Gary Nylund]

Injuries happen all the time, what is better 5 stars or 4 stars? Talent is something every team covets and Mitch is as talented as they come. You want more skill not less.

Not so black in white IMO. If you have all the talent in the world and they don't win, what good is it?

 

[Leafsfan74]

Morgan Rielly is -19, when everyone else (except for Myers) is a -4 or better is kind of telling you a lot.

It's kinda silly to discount a stat because it requires context, +/- has value but needs to be used with other metrics to establish context. Players know their +/-, just like goalies know their W/L record, many fans on this forum would also say W/L record for goalies is meaningless. Both of those stats mean something to the players..

People devalued +/- and embraced advanced stats. I suppose it depends on the stat, context and whatnot. I've always placed heavy value on it and it's served me well in hockey pools in the past. One stat that should concern fans is the goal differential for this team is one of the worst of any playoff team.

In regards to comparisons: similar type of player, similar zone starts, similar detail can glean more information. For me, Tanev has been the most impressive Leaf this year, his partner not too far behind. Tanev was such a great pick up by Brad that it allows me to have faith that he can find the right guys to inject into this lineup where other GMs might not. He knew this player well and it he may arguably be the MVP of this team along with the goaltending tandem. Just a quiet warrior and his partner in McCabe is a guy you want in a foxhole with you, he is strictly business, the conscience of this team the way Muzzin was. He apologizes to goalies when he is on the ice and the other team scores, that's accountability you want and it trickles down to the goalie.

If this team is going to sniff at the Cup it will be because of this defensive core and its goaltending. Conn Smythe level goaltender. The forwards simply have to do their part in defending by committee and Leafs can beat any team including Florida. The issue has always been will and this is where they have faltered. Imagine if these guys played with the determination and "win at all costs" effort former Leaf teams did? They'd have at least one Cup by now and multiple deep runs IMO. They would have won at least half of the game sevens.

An old poker saying when a fairly snug player makes a big bet on river, excuse my language, "did you find a hand or did you finally find your balls". The Leafs forwards will have to do the latter once this regular season ends. Anyone willing to wage all of their worldly belongings that they will do so?

This is once again the defining question.

 

[Antropovsky]

Plus / minus on its own is not a reliable stat. Players get a plus on a line change for doing nothing. It also doesn’t take into account QoC. Plus / Minus unless really positive or really negative isn’t a strong indicator of anything significant. Too many not accounted for variables (special teams not included)

You keep mentioning quality of competition but you ignore quality of linemates. Tulsky actually said quality of linemates is more significant impact on a players production then QOC. If Tulsky says quality of linemates matters more than quality of competition....then why does someone as knowledgeable as you keep excluding it?

 

[Gabriel426]

What's annoying is one of these guys will eventually move on to an other team and we'll watch them win the cup in their first year with their new club... they got the talent, they dont got the stones.

Is Mitch the answer for playoff success? Probably not but finishing top 3 is better than finishing where Boston will finish with one legit super star and a bunch of Meh! players because of injury.

Not everyone will be Phil and Phil did played well in his only playoffs appearance with the Leafs.

This is just some Games Theory stuff.

We know that McCabe and Tanev are miles better than Benoit and OEL, as McCabe and Tanev are rocks in the backend and provide great defense.

Now does MM provide better defense coverage than McCabe and Tanev. The answer is no.

From a caphit standpoint, let’s say MM will sign at 12mil and Benoit and OEL are at 4.8mil combined, that’s 16.8mil. While McCabe and Tanev make 9.25mil.
Let’s imagine there are another pair of Dmen as good as McCabe and Tanev that costs 9.25mil. While a top 6 winger is willing to sign with the Leafs at 7.5mil.
Would the impact of MM, Benoit and OEL be more than another pairing like Tanev and McCabe with a 7.5mil top 6 winger.

That’s no right or wrong answers but it is something that MGT needs to consider

 

[francis246]

You keep mentioning quality of competition but you ignore quality of linemates. Tulsky actually said quality of linemates is more significant impact on a players production then QOC. If Tulsky says quality of linemates matters more than quality of competition....then why does someone as knowledgeable as you keep excluding it?

I’m not dismissing it or excluding it. I just didn’t name it. QoC was the first thing that popped into my head. Additionally, I said “too many not accounted variables” you can include that if you want to. I just gave a quick example of one variable. I didn’t feel it was necessary to list out every single possible variable. The fact that you have to grasp to the most useless, nonsensical thing in a post just shows who you are as a poster IMO and it’s common tactic you do. You never address the post directly, you deflect, especially when called out to something completely irrelevant to the post itself.

 

[francis246]

Morgan Rielly is -19, when everyone else (except for Myers) is a -4 or better is kind of telling you a lot.

It's kinda silly to discount a stat because it requires context, +/- has value but needs to be used with other metrics to establish context. Players know their +/-, just like goalies know their W/L record, many fans on this forum would also say W/L record for goalies is meaningless. Both of those stats mean something to the players..

Agreed like all things, with context it can help frame things. But like I said originally, I don’t think it’s useless, it just doesn’t tell you anything of significance on its own. Unless you watch every single play.

 

[thusk]

Very good points actually I will say but have you ever thought that maybe the reason why we were down 3 one 1 is cause marner wasn’t producing away from matthews? I showed you matthews played 5 games and was injured marner played the whole 7 and still got out produced

Maybe it's marner fault for lack of production

Maybe its Nylander fault to start majority of game off... only 5 of his 32 pts last 5 playoff was in 1st half of an hockey game and majority of them came with a man advantage

Maybe Matthews fault to don't be able to put the puck in like he did in regular season

maybe it's abiut depht who don't bring enough help to top line

maybe it's D fault who's struggling in transition and create thing offensively

maybe it's goalie fault to don't be as good than his opponent

Or maybe it's just a mix of everything

Like i said, for me it's not about 1 player who need to be better but about an entire team

 

[arso40]

Maybe it's marner fault for lack of production

Maybe its Nylander fault to start majority of game off... only 5 of his 32 pts last 5 playoff was in 1st half of an hockey game and majority of them came with a man advantage

Maybe Matthews fault to don't be able to put the puck in like he did in regular season

maybe it's abiut depht who don't bring enough help to top line

maybe it's D fault who's struggling in transition and create thing offensively

maybe it's goalie fault to don't be as good than his opponent

Or maybe it's just a mix of everything

Like i said, for me it's not about 1 player who need to be better but about an entire team

I was specifically talking about last year if your responding to that I’d love to hear it cause what your saying doesn’t correlate I am not singling out marner for our 8 year issues curious what depth you expect there to be when 5 guys get more than half the cap

 

[666]

Plus / minus on its own is not a reliable stat. Players get a plus on a line change for doing nothing. It also doesn’t take into account QoC. Plus / Minus unless really positive or really negative isn’t a strong indicator of anything significant. Too many not accounted for variables (special teams not included)

Hockey can't be measured. Well, maybe with some AI tools that aren't available to the public. Plus / minus and it's better cousin GF/60 and GA/60 can be very useful if used properly. Problem is very few people know how to use it.

People like points because points are a measure of the individual contribution to goals. The problem is that the average scoring play lasts 10 seconds and there are 6 goals per game so points only measures about 1 minute of a 60 minute game. How do we measure that other 98% of the game? Bedard is on a terrible team so comparing his points across teams would be dumb but a good example why points isn't great.

GF/GA measure the success of a line and not individuals but they are constantly changing. When using GF/GA you need A LOT of data to try and average out the context of different linemates, coaches and competition etc. Traditionally we do something like Marner with Matthews vs Nylander with Matthews over a few years. It's not much better than points but can give you a feel for how effective combinations are especially because it contains a defensive component.

That leads us to the "advanced" stats based on shots and shot attempts which has led to "expected" stats. They look at where every shot was taken from and whether or not it went in over many years and then use it to "value" todays shots. It's probably the best thing we have now as there is TON of data but it seems to confuse a lot of people around here for some reason so I avoid using them for this crowd.

We can only use the tools that we have but when used properly they do seem to do fairly well to confirm the eye test.

Here's an example:last 3 full seasons 5v5:

We know the context and we've got three years of data. Why is Rantanen a severely negative player when Mack isn't on his line but Mack is fine without him? Now this wouldn't mean much if Rantanen was at the team average of 53 but 42 is absurdly low. Something is very off here. Maybe we could dig deeper by adding more linemates but then we need a lot more data but it sure seems that he needs Mack to be productive but you be your own judge.

 

[francis246]

Hockey can't be measured. Well, maybe with some AI tools that aren't available to the public. Plus / minus and it's better cousin GF/60 and GA/60 can be very useful if used properly. Problem is very few people know how to use it.

People like points because points are a measure of the individual contribution to goals. The problem is that the average scoring play lasts 10 seconds and there are 6 goals per game so points only measures about 1 minute of a 60 minute game. How do we measure that other 98% of the game? Bedard is on a terrible team so comparing his points across teams would be dumb but a good example why points isn't great.

GF/GA measure the success of a line and not individuals but they are constantly changing. When using GF/GA you need A LOT of data to try and average out the context of different linemates, coaches and competition etc. Traditionally we do something like Marner with Matthews vs Nylander with Matthews over a few years. It's not much better than points but can give you a feel for how effective combinations are especially because it contains a defensive component.

That leads us to the "advanced" stats based on shots and shot attempts which has led to "expected" stats. They look at where every shot was taken from and whether or not it went in over many years and then use it to "value" todays shots. It's probably the best thing we have now as there is TON of data but it seems to confuse a lot of people around here for some reason so I avoid using them for this crowd.

We can only use the tools that we have but when used properly they do seem to do fairly well to confirm the eye test.

Here's an example:last 3 full seasons 5v5:
View attachment 997033

We know the context and we've got three years of data. Why is Rantanen a severely negative player when Mack isn't on his line but Mack is fine without him? Now this wouldn't mean much if Rantanen was at the team average of 53 but 42 is absurdly low. Something is very off here. Maybe we could dig deeper by adding more linemates but then we need a lot more data but it sure seems that he needs Mack to be productive but you be your own judge.

Agreed, that’s why I was very sure/careful to say on its own, it’s not overly reliable. But used in the right context it can provide insight.

 

[Its not your fault]

My opinion is that Mitch Marner is not good for us because he is slow and weak. He does get points in the regular season, but consistently fades in important playoff games. He has been a key member to a core that has won a single playoff series over the past 8 years.

I feel it would be wise to trade him for Crosby if we can get Sid to sign an extra year and hope for McDavid.

Discuss.

Lastly. I think I am right because the people that disagree have only 8 years of being wrong.

Thank you

Jason Allison

 

[666]

Agreed, that’s why I was very sure/careful to say on its own, it’s not overly reliable. But used in the right context it can provide insight.

Agreed. I just wish we had better data. A few weeks ago the announcers said something like Marner leads the league in defensive plays in the offensive zone. I was immediately not surprised as he is incredible at keeping the puck in the offensive zone and getting it out of the defensive zone but we just don't count those things. It turns out that this "stat" came from some company that charges for the data. There's only 1312 games a season, how hard would it be to use humans or an AI to count all of these things that we don't measure?

 

[francis246]

Agreed. I just wish we had better data. A few weeks ago the announcers said something like Marner leads the league in defensive plays in the offensive zone. I was immediately not surprised as he is incredible at keeping the puck in the offensive zone and getting it out of the defensive zone but we just don't count those things. It turns out that this "stat" came from some company that charges for the data. There's only 1312 games a season, how hard would it be to use humans or an AI to count all of these things that we don't measure?

I think a lot of NHL teams have bought those companies and those companies provide that data specifically to the teams. Makes sense from a competitive standpoint