Player Discussion Mitch Marner

[Gary Nylund]

Leafs do not win a cup with Kutch instead of Marner. More interesting question is, does Tampa win with Marner instead of Kutch?

That is is an interesting question! On one hand, if Marner fades after 4 playoff games as has been his habit then they probably don't. On the other hand, maybe the reason he fades away is partly because the pressure to perform in his home town is too much for him to handle and since that wouldn't be an issue in TB, he'd be just fine in which case TB does win those cups.

 

[Punch Drunk Loov]

That is is an interesting question! On one hand, if Marner fades after 4 playoff games as has been his habit then they probably don't. On the other hand, maybe the reason he fades away is partly because the pressure to perform in his home town is too much for him to handle and since that wouldn't be an issue in TB, he'd be just fine in which case TB does win those cups.

Fun scenario and I am bored at work haha.

I would say yes, Tampa probably wins their 2 cups with Mitch replacing Kuch. These teams were built extremely well and had a ton of players out performing their contracts with excellent 3rd lines and defense.

We don't win with Kucherov because we don't have money to spend on depth and defense

Imo

 

[bax]

I think Tampa wins with Marner instead of kuch. Elite goaltending, coaching and d. Three things the leafs have sorely lacked.

 

[Gary Nylund]

Fun scenario and I am bored at work haha.

I would say yes, Tampa probably wins their 2 cups with Mitch replacing Kuch. These teams were built extremely well and had a ton of players out performing their contracts with excellent 3rd lines and defense.

We don't win with Kucherov because we don't have money to spend on depth and defense

Imo

I think Tampa wins with Marner instead of kuch. Elite goaltending, coaching and d. Three things the leafs have sorely lacked.

Good points. And maybe the team being so strong overall is another reason that maybe Marner feels less pressure and plays better. In any case I agree, they win the cups with Marner instead of Kucherov.

Kucherov v. Marner is the least impactful of those swaps. Smallest gap in player smallest positional importance for a playoff run unless they are really on fire. I think any single swap of the four and we have multiple years with better playoff success than we have had.

Agree with this as well.

 

[egd27]

Kind of wierd that a Vasy doesn't command the highest salary in the league

Yea, but if you spend too much on one position it causes problems in other..........wait, never mind.

 

[Punch Drunk Loov]

Itd be fun to swap every cup teams best winger with marner and ask yourself if they'd still have won? It's probably all yes

Vegas? Lmao yes I think Mitch would be able to replicate Marchessault
Colorado - Rantanen. This one I'm not sure
Bolts- Kucherov - Yes
St. Louis - Tarasenko - Yes.
Capitals - Oveckhin - No

 

[Aashir]

I get the sense that if we swap Kucherov and Marner we have at least one cup. I don't get that feeling with Matthews and any other centre in the league. Am I off base here?

Tbh I don’t agree

Swap matthews and Mack or Mcdavid and I feel the same as swapping kuch and marner

Nylander level players don’t make enough of a difference so it wouldn’t matter if we swapped him with like ehlers, Connor, fiala, reinhart etc…
Maybe a round win, but not much more

Tavares ditto, but his swap would probably be better than him

 

[Gary Nylund]

Tbh I don’t agree

Swap matthews and Mack or Mcdavid and I feel the same as swapping kuch and marner

Nylander level players don’t make enough of a difference so it wouldn’t matter if we swapped him with like ehlers, Connor, fiala, reinhart etc…
Maybe a round win, but not much more

Tavares ditto, but his swap would probably be better than him

What if we swap Matthews, Marner and Nylander for the Tkachuk brothers and Mackinnon?

 

[Nineteen67]

Itd be fun to swap every cup teams best winger with marner and ask yourself if they'd still have won? It's probably all yes

Vegas? Lmao yes I think Mitch would be able to replicate Marchessault
Colorado - Rantanen. This one I'm not sure
Bolts- Kucherov - Yes
St. Louis - Tarasenko - Yes.
Capitals - Oveckhin - No

But he’d be replacing Stone

 

[Aashir]

What if we swap Matthews, Marner and Nylander for the Tkachuk brothers and Mackinnon?

That’s actually a good question. At first thought it seems like a slam dunk, but idk maybe I’m being biased but…

Mackinnon > Matthews Is the only one I could say definitely. There’s no real argument for AM.

M Tkachuk > Marner is also pretty somewhat clear, however I’m not as sold on tkachuk, he’s had last years run which was spectacular, but prior to that he was worse than Marner in the playoffs. I need to see it more than once to make sure it ain’t a flash in the pan.

B Tkachuk needs to make the playoffs. Yes his style seems well suited to the playoffs, but his team is based off of making terrible defensive plays and efforts and playing offence. Idk who in their top six you could call good defensively, and I could give you plenty of names for bad players defensively. Even in that environment he’s struggles to consistently hit ppg. I might make the swap because he SHOULD work in the playoffs, but I can’t really give the edge to a guy who leads his team to 24th place in the league

So while it isn’t a slam dunk, I do think I’d make the swap, even if it’s purely for AM vs NM

 

[Punch Drunk Loov]

But he’d be replacing Stone

Yeah I'd take Stone over Mitch pretty easily. Just based the exercise off the MVP instead of the actual best winger for that one lol

 

[Aashir]

Yeah I'd take Stone over Mitch pretty easily. Just based the exercise off the MVP instead of the actual best winger for that one lol

I disagree

In what world is a barely ppg player better than Marner. Marner killed more minutes of penalties in half the games, produced 7 less points in 11 less games. Stone got dominated in his minutes and barely outscored the opposition and he wasn’t always lining up against the best lines

Stone was not as big of a factor to that team as eichel, hill, petro, Theodore, Marchessault were.

Swap those two and nothing change imo

 

[Punch Drunk Loov]

I disagree

In what world is a barely ppg player better than Marner. Marner killed more minutes of penalties in half the games, produced 7 less points in 11 less games. Stone got dominated in his minutes and barely outscored the opposition and he wasn’t always lining up against the best lines

Stone was not as big of a factor to that team as eichel, hill, petro, Theodore, Marchessault were.

Swap those two and nothing change imo

I don't think I have a lot to add to a Marner vs Stone vs Marchessault debate but I respect your input

I knew the Marner swap game would be fun

 

[Aashir]

I don't think I have a lot to add to a Marner vs Stone vs Marchessault debate but I respect your input

I knew the Marner swap game would be fun

Is there a reason you pick stone over marner? I'm not the biggest marner fan but I don't really see how Stone is comparable so maybe I'm missing something

 

[Strangle]

No. Properly presented stats have value in these discussions. But, you can't measure hockey with stats like baseball and this is where the fake stats are much more of a problem.

All it takes to understand Marner is to watch him and or watch the team without him. Anyone who watches Marner and doesn't realize very quickly that he is a superstar simply does not understand the game. Period. All players deserve some criticism some times. But if you are one the haters who believes that Marner shouldn't be re-signed then you clearly do not understand the game and it will be proven to you when the professionals who are responsible for re-signing him do, REGARDLESS how how he performs in the coming playoffs.

So for the haters who are waiting to see him "get better in the playoffs" before you give your approval, it's too late. If you had your way he wouldn't be on the team anymore so you have chosen a very strange hill to die on. Man, it must suck cheering against the second best Leaf in the modern era.

You sound like a fan of the player instead of the team.

That’s backwards.

If you can win more games without Marner because of a different mix the salary space would allow you, you do it.

These guys have had a lot of chances, it’s not working. Marner is the only change the team could make at this point.

It’s only debatable how much better or worse the team could be by letting him walk, but when you’ve been a leafs fan as long as some of us have, you don’t sweat losing a player, you only sweat how the team can win a cup.

I don’t care who is on the team, players come and players go

 

[Notsince67]

You sound like a fan of the player instead of the team.

That’s backwards.

If you can win more games without Marner because of a different mix the salary space would allow you, you do it.

These guys have had a lot of chances, it’s not working. Marner is the only change the team could make at this point.

It’s only debatable how much better or worse the team could be by letting him walk, but when you’ve been a leafs fan as long as some of us have, you don’t sweat losing a player, you only sweat how the team can win a cup.

I don’t care who is on the team, players come and players go

That has not been demonstrated so we can assume people hate him more than they love the team.
I'm starting to get this child's game.

 

[666]

You sound like a fan of the player instead of the team.

That’s backwards.

If you can win more games without Marner because of a different mix the salary space would allow you, you do it.

These guys have had a lot of chances, it’s not working. Marner is the only change the team could make at this point.

It’s only debatable how much better or worse the team could be by letting him walk, but when you’ve been a leafs fan as long as some of us have, you don’t sweat losing a player, you only sweat how the team can win a cup.

I don’t care who is on the team, players come and players go

This is stupid short term thinking. If this team was going to go in another direction the first change would have been Nylander. The next major change will be Tavares. This team will be built around Matthews and Marner and you all know it. I'm surprised you fools aren't suggesting to get rid of Matthews because "he hasn't gotten it done". It's like getting rid Draisial because you made a mistake with Nurse. Think.

 

[Strangle]

This is stupid short term thinking. If this team was going to go in another direction the first change would have been Nylander. The next major change will be Tavares. This team will be built around Matthews and Marner and you all know it. I'm surprised you fools aren't suggesting to get rid of Matthews because "he hasn't gotten it done". It's like getting rid Draisial because you made a mistake with Nurse. Think.

I don’t disagree with you, I thought Nylander was the right piece to move too, followed by tavares

That isn’t realistic now and while Marner may be my favorite player on the team he is still the only one they can walk away from

Mistakes have obviously been made

This team was expected to win before these big 4 got their big pay days. That’s why Tavares was brought in. The team failed hard, management failed hard and then continued to fail hard.

It doesn’t mean they have to continue to fail

 

[666]

I don’t disagree with you, I thought Nylander was the right piece to move too, followed by tavares

That isn’t realistic now and while Marner may be my favorite player on the team he is still the only one they can walk away from

Mistakes have obviously been made

This team was expected to win before these big 4 got their big pay days. That’s why Tavares was brought in. The team failed hard, management failed hard and then continued to fail hard.

It doesn’t mean they have to continue to fail

Who says they are going to fail? You don't get rid of Marner when Tavares is gone in one more year. You just don't.

 

[Gary Nylund]

I don’t disagree with you, I thought Nylander was the right piece to move too, followed by tavares

That isn’t realistic now and while Marner may be my favorite player on the team he is still the only one they can walk away from

Mistakes have obviously been made

This team was expected to win before these big 4 got their big pay days. That’s why Tavares was brought in. The team failed hard, management failed hard and then continued to fail hard.

It doesn’t mean they have to continue to fail

For some people Marner is some sort of holy relic and for them, Marner needs to be part of the team no matter what. The subject is not open for discussion and if you dare to suggest otherwise, you are labelled a hater no mater how logical your arguments. As you said earlier, some people love the player more than the team, that says it all really.

 

[666]

For some people Marner is some sort of holy relic and for them, Marner needs to be part of the team no matter what. The subject is not open for discussion and if you dare to suggest otherwise, you are labelled a hater no mater how logical your arguments. As you said earlier, some people love the player more than the team, that says it all really.

There is no logical argument to get rid of Marner or Matthews. There is a bizarre emotional reaction that a few people have but it's not logical.

 

[Dekes For Days]

Kind of wierd that a Vasy doesn't command the highest salary in the league

Goalies fluctuate too much and have too much potential for negative impacts to be paid the most.
Vasilevsky himself went from dynasty goalie of a generation to league average goaltender this year.

 

[Gary Nylund]

There is no logical argument to get rid of Marner or Matthews. There is a bizarre emotional reaction that a few people have but it's not logical.

Marner's agent loves you, sounds like you're willing to give him a blank check.

 

[666]

Marner's agent loves you, sounds like you're willing to give him a blank check.

Not my cheque but if it was I'd go about $12.5Mx5 and hope for 8 years. Matthews should be the highest paid player on the team and Marner should be second. Something pretty close to this is almost sure to happen.

 

[Punch Drunk Loov]

Who says they are going to fail? You don't get rid of Marner when Tavares is gone in one more year. You just don't.

I'd like to hear your argument as to why you think this team will in fact compete for a cup with our players and cap structure. Our core players are in their primes today. Both Matthews and Nylander are having career scoring years. Do you truly foresee this team in a conference final this year or do you see these players improving once their pay increases kick in? There is too much pressure on these 4 guys and I don't think they can do it alone. I don't think waiting until 2025-2026 for JT's deal to expire is a good strategy