Player Discussion Mitch Marner

[57 Years No Cup]

Even the video shows them talking to each other but morons and the media online were saying they were bitching at Marner.

Man I don’t know what’s worse?

The morons spreading crap or the morons believing it



This guy is ready for post Sundin era to happen all over again.

Yikes.

Comparing Marner to Sundin is laughable. Marner can't even hold Sundin's jock.

 

[Gabriel426]

I may well agree with what you say, all I’m saying is I enjoy winning most of the time during 7 long months of winter hockey. So doing well during the regular season is important to me. Sure the playoffs are a downer and they are more intense but that only lasts a few weeks and it’s over. Yes I’d like to win a Cup as well but at the expense of watching some boring ass game all winter I probably wouldn’t care anymore.

Reg season is important, bc you need 100 pts to make the playoffs.
The thing is that winning 2-1 or 4-2 or 5-4 doesn't really matters as long as they win. If boring hockey means winning in the regular season and playoffs, I would rather watch boring hockey. Beside, winning is exciting, and as long as they win, you probably wont care how they play.

 

[QJo]

Reg season is important, bc you need 100 pts to make the playoffs.
The thing is that winning 2-1 or 4-2 or 5-4 doesn't really matters as long as they win. If boring hockey means winning in the regular season and playoffs, I would rather watch boring hockey. Beside, winning is exciting, and as long as they win, you probably wont care how they play.

I'm with Confucius in a certain sense. Entertainment is king to me. Very few of us are fans of NHL champion Toronto Maple Leafs. We all grew up and fell in love with the passion we saw on the ice. Teams that lost but put it out there like the other team would have to take the win from their cold dead hands. I don't care too much for the bragging rights, my team is better than yours mentality. I want to see people play the way I dreamed of playing when I was a kid. Win or lose I want to see players that are going to fight for victory like they know history will remember them.

 

[Gabriel426]

Reading some of these comments, I’m astounded at posters who are clearly fans of Marner more than they are fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

This team will not cease to exist and fall to the bottom of the league without Mitch Marner.

This team could end up a better team without Marner, first by having at least $12m in cap space to fill more pressing holes than anything Marner supposedly does.

Add to it the potential of a trade and what could be had in a deal for Marner, and this team could be infinitely better off without Marner.

Please go Marner fanboi somewhere else.

Not sure where that would be, but my hunch is it would be where the Dubas fanboi’s go as well. The posters for both look the same…..

100%

On one hand, you have MM defenders saying he is very important to the Leafs as he is the creativity and the Leafs will be boring without MM. On another you have the same people saying it is not only his fault that the team struggles.

Is the Leafs better off playing without MM at this moment, probably not. But would they be a better team without MM in the years to come, that depends on his replacements. And that goes for any players on the Leafs. If we replace AM with McD or Drai, I think we can survive. IF we replace Reilly with Carlson, think we can survive. Brady with MM, think thats alright too.
At the end of the day, as talented as the current core, heck they might even be the most talented Leafs ever, they are not replaceable. Look at the Islanders, they lost their Capt and their best player and went to the ECF two years in a row.

 

[TorMapleJays]

1. Strong arm him
2. Piss him and his agent off
3. His agent now tells all his clients
4. His agent also tells other agents
5. Congrats - your org now has a reputation of not knowing how to treat people properly.

Take the emotion out of it for a second - if you're a free agent (Brett Pesce, for example), and the Leafs approach you with an offer to sign here, and you've caught wind that the organization is really poor at treating players who are having a hard time, what decision do you think that free agent is going to make?

Nah, I think you’ve reading into this too much. This isn’t Salt Lake… it’s Toronto and we have world class amenities

 

[Gabriel426]

I'm with Confucius in a certain sense. Entertainment is king to me. Very few of us are fans of NHL champion Toronto Maple Leafs. We all grew up and fell in love with the passion we saw on the ice. Teams that lost but put it out there like the other team would have to take the win from their cold dead hands. I don't care too much for the bragging rights, my team is better than yours mentality. I want to see people play the way I dreamed of playing when I was a kid. Win or lose I want to see players that are going to fight for victory like they know history will remember them.

Winning is entertainment. Bc it brings excitement. Usually when the game is close, it is exciting bc the losing team will be pushing to tie.
To me excitement/entertainment is not just player X making some great plays, rather it is players pushing for something.
If you truly be honest, games that end when Leafs winning by a goal or two(empty net) is more exciting then when they blow out a team by 5-6 goals.

Point is, lets say Leafs trade AM and MM away, it doesn't mean they will play the trap like NJ and be boring hockey.

 

[LeafSteel]

Even the video shows them talking to each other but morons and the media online were saying they were bitching at Marner.

Man I don’t know what’s worse?

The morons spreading crap or the morons believing it



This guy is ready for post Sundin era to happen all over again.

Yikes.

Just the fact that you are comparing “losing” Marner, ignoring everything I said we stand to benefit by moving on, I might add…..

….. to anything remotely resembling “post-Sundin era” says waaaaaay more about you than anything I could possibly say.

Come on, we have way more going for us than when we went through the Muskoka 5 debacle.

…… or are you now crapping on Matthews and Nylander because Marner is the bestest and he’s why they are any good, and they will both suck rocks without Marner to carry them?

Come on.

 

[Tak7]

Nah, I think you’ve reading into this too much. This isn’t Salt Lake… it’s Toronto and we have world class amenities

Yet still struggle to attract top free agents.

You're overvaluing the lure of playing in Toronto for guys who aren't on their final legs.

 

[QJo]

Winning is entertainment. Bc it brings excitement. Usually when the game is close, it is exciting bc the losing team will be pushing to tie.
To me excitement/entertainment is not just player X making some great plays, rather it is players pushing for something.
If you truly be honest, games that end when Leafs winning by a goal or two(empty net) is more exciting then when they blow out a team by 5-6 goals.

Point is, lets say Leafs trade AM and MM away, it doesn't mean they will play the trap like NJ and be boring hockey.

I'll go a step further and say it's more entertaining to lose by 1 and be fighting til the end than to win by 5 or 6. I wouldn't want to watch the leafs play the Windsor Spitfires because they'd win by a high margin. I'd rather see the leafs leave it all on the ice and lose by 1. Because of how the anxiety has you watching so closely. How you feel like every shot might be the one.
I hate Boston as much as the next guy, unless the next guy wants anything worse than losing to happen to them. But if we could sweep them that wouldn't be as must see edge of your seat can't get this feeling anywhere else like a game 7 is.
(I would love to sweep them of course).

And just to keep this on topic I think Marner plays the way I'm talking about sometimes. We need it all the time come playoffs.

 

[Joel Ward]

None of the 'core four' have really lived up to expectations offensively in the playoffs during their Leafs tenures. Seems silly to scapegoat Marner when he's been the most consistently productive of the bunch.

Player	GP	G	A	P	P/GP
Nylander	51	17	23	40	0.78
Matthews	53	23	24	47	0.89
Marner	54	11	38	49	0.91
Tavares	35	12	11	23	0.68

 

[thewave]

None of the 'core four' have really lived up to expectations offensively in the playoffs during their Leafs tenures. Seems silly to scapegoat Marner when he's been the most consistently productive of the bunch.

Player	GP	G	A	P	P/GP
Nylander	51	17	23	40	0.78
Matthews	53	23	24	47	0.89
Marner	54	11	38	49	0.91
Tavares	35	12	11	23	0.68

This going to sound crazy but how much you want to bet if they had a good coach they would have better production.

They don't even have a PP or PK lol

MM is cooked here btw. I mean that glove toss and his weak personality. He is roasted

 

[Gabriel426]

I'll go a step further and say it's more entertaining to lose by 1 and be fighting til the end than to win by 5 or 6. I wouldn't want to watch the leafs play the Windsor Spitfires because they'd win by a high margin. I'd rather see the leafs leave it all on the ice and lose by 1. Because of how the anxiety has you watching so closely. How you feel like every shot might be the one.
I hate Boston as much as the next guy, unless the next guy wants anything worse than losing to happen to them. But if we could sweep them that wouldn't be as must see edge of your seat can't get this feeling anywhere else like a game 7 is.
(I would love to sweep them of course).

And just to keep this on topic I think Marner plays the way I'm talking about sometimes. We need it all the time come playoffs.

Exactly how I feel about games.

Regarding Marner, I think if he is buzzing all over the ice, thats the Marner that I like to see. But he has not been doing that.
To me it is more like can we win with our current top guys and the answer or history had shown us that-we can't. Changes need to happen. Some point to bc they are overpaid and once JT is off, Leafs would have 5-7mil to spend on another top 6 player. But I think it has more to do with the mentality of the top guys more than lacking talents. IT seems like when the going gets tough, they shrink instead of shine.
Either that or our top guys are just not as good as we think. Which would means we bet on the wrong horses and need to more dramatic changes

 

[keonsbitterness]

Leafs are a good regular season team with or without Marner.

Maybe, but we don't know that unless he were to leave.

 

[Antropovsky]

If Marner doesn't throw his gloves... then the media/broadcast team doesn't pick up on the argument on the bench and it's a non issue. The glove throwing was blood in the water... and shockingly, the guy who complains all the time about the negative media attention is the one doing it.

 

[theTTC]

If Mitch's agent and his father had just accepted say $7.5M for 8 years, about what he has proven to be worth taking both regular season (genius) and playoffs (worse than invisible) into account, Mitch wouldn't be under this scrutiny and criticism and this thread wouldn't exist. There ya go. Hope those two sleep well after f***ing up this young man with shockingly bad advice.

 

[Tak7]

If Marner doesn't throw his gloves... then the media/broadcast team doesn't pick up on the argument on the bench and it's a non issue. The glove throwing was blood in the water... and shockingly, the guy who complains all the time about the negative media attention is the one doing it.

Not a dig at Marner, but I've always found it bizarre that the local guy who grew up a Leafs fan, who comes from a family of Leafs fans, always seem so unaware of how this market works.

He had to know as soon as that first glove came off, that the cameras were going to be all over him - mainly because that's exactly what happened last year when he pulled a similar thing in Anaheim. And that wasn't playoffs, or in your home barn.

 

[Martin Skoula]

None of the 'core four' have really lived up to expectations offensively in the playoffs during their Leafs tenures. Seems silly to scapegoat Marner when he's been the most consistently productive of the bunch.

Player	GP	G	A	P	P/GP
Nylander	51	17	23	40	0.78
Matthews	53	23	24	47	0.89
Marner	54	11	38	49	0.91
Tavares	35	12	11	23	0.68

The powerplay and breakout run through him, obviously he’s going to rack up more assists than the rest when he gets a touch on every single zone entry and cycle back to the point, that doesn’t mean he’s creating more offense than the others. He has by far the least goals because he’s afraid of getting anywhere close to the net.

That’s the real issue here, Keefe has too many of our systems depend on Marner performing at a high level, when he wilts in the playoffs like he always does, it simultaneously nukes our PP, PK, and transition. There’s a reason our special teams are consistently garbage in the playoffs, there’s a reason our top 6 gets hemmed in our own zone and destroyed by counterpunch offense when we do get set up. The guy with the most touches on the puck is wildly unreliable under any sort of pressure.

 

[LeafSteel]

Just the fact that you are comparing “losing” Marner, ignoring everything I said we stand to benefit by moving on, I might add…..

….. to anything remotely resembling “post-Sundin era” says waaaaaay more about you than anything I could possibly say.

Come on, we have way more going for us than when we went through the Muskoka 5 debacle.

…… or are you now crapping on Matthews and Nylander because Marner is the bestest and he’s why they are any good, and they will both suck rocks without Marner to carry them?

Come on.

Why would think that?

What isn’t clear about what I said how this team could be better without Marner?

 

[Antropovsky]

If Mitch's agent and his father had just accepted say $7.5M for 8 years, about what he has proven to be worth taking both regular season (genius) and playoffs (worse than invisible) into account, Mitch wouldn't be under this scrutiny and criticism and this thread wouldn't exist. There ya go. Hope those two sleep well after f***ing up this young man with shockingly bad advice.

It was all over the media that Marner better be prepared to be lit up if he doesn't perform to his contract. Marner kind of makes reference to it in his Thank You letter to the fans, where he says something to the effect or "people say you will be under the microscope in Toronto, but you know what, I wouldn't have it any other way".

BTW has any other NHL player do a thank you letter to the fans like Marner after signing? Who did he think he was? LeBron?

I mean 9 vs 11 million though... I think everyone is gonna take the money ey and live with the criticism.

 

[francis246]

MM always been a medias darling. Before this playoffs, there are hardly any criticisms on him from the medias. Esp the advance stats crowd. The only diff now is that the advance stats crowd in the medias are very quiet bc even they know the team is struggling and MM been bad.

Honestly, he has been really bad this playoffs and generally wasnt good the past few playoffs.

Only now that the medias are over him bc it is really obvious.

Is MM the only problem? Nope. Is he a major factor in Leafs struggles? Yes.

I would say that beside the 4th line and a few players, the whole team from top to bottom sucks. However, if you are the top players of the team, the blame will be toward you esp if you are not performing.
People don’t crap on JT bc he is a sunk cost.
People say the same thing about Willie, just go and see how many people(fans and medias) were questioning his injury while he skated with the team.
AM is getting heat not as much as MM but some questions(me included) why does he always get outplayed by opposing C.

This couldn’t be further from the truth. I literally listen to just about every maple leafs podcast out there. This season people rightfully so, have had enough of Marner. I don’t necessarily disagree with a lot of what has been said, but to sit here and say he has been a media darling this year is just a straight up lie. The guy has been getting his back kicked in since the contract negotiations (which he brought on himself) and this year he started off really bad and that didn’t help. But this year has been the worst of it.

At the end of the day, I’m in the camp of it’s time to move on from him. I don’t think he’s good for the Leafs and the Leafs aren’t good for him. A move will be good for both parties.

 

[1specter]

None of the 'core four' have really lived up to expectations offensively in the playoffs during their Leafs tenures. Seems silly to scapegoat Marner when he's been the most consistently productive of the bunch.

Player	GP	G	A	P	P/GP
Nylander	51	17	23	40	0.78
Matthews	53	23	24	47	0.89
Marner	54	11	38	49	0.91
Tavares	35	12	11	23	0.68

Getting sick of seeing this copout get parroted repeatedly. Look at their respective roles and usage over the years, @Martin Skoula also explains it well. Nylander has had multiple playoff runs where he didn't get the benefit of playing with either Tavares or Matthews or even Kadri, and has had to play 3C or on PP2 at times carrying lesser players, and yet he still has the most playoff goals on the team since 2020. Marner has multiple 30+ goal seasons and has exclusively played with either John Tavares or Auston Matthews for the last 5 years and scores at a 15 goal pace in the playoffs, and almost never plays between the dots. He also scores most of his points in the first 2-3 games of a series and disappears the longer a series goes on.

 

[BraveCanadian]

None of the 'core four' have really lived up to expectations offensively in the playoffs during their Leafs tenures. Seems silly to scapegoat Marner when he's been the most consistently productive of the bunch.

Player	GP	G	A	P	P/GP
Nylander	51	17	23	40	0.78
Matthews	53	23	24	47	0.89
Marner	54	11	38	49	0.91
Tavares	35	12	11	23	0.68

Wait! This doesn't fit the narrative!

 

[mydnyte]

None of the 'core four' have really lived up to expectations offensively in the playoffs during their Leafs tenures. Seems silly to scapegoat Marner when he's been the most consistently productive of the bunch.

Player	GP	G	A	P	P/GP
Nylander	51	17	23	40	0.78
Matthews	53	23	24	47	0.89
Marner	54	11	38	49	0.91
Tavares	35	12	11	23	0.68

for the record, you should compare the teams they are up against and the goalies as well. all things considered, its not too bad.
it's not like the leafs are in a 'weak' division, or play in the west where high scoring playoff games are the norm, and then add the fact that we have had a lousy defense since any of the core-4 were drafted and, how often shifts are lost playing keep away in their own end because of it.

 

[Stephen]

for the record, you should compare the teams they are up against and the goalies as well. all things considered, its not too bad.
it's not like the leafs are in a 'weak' division, or play in the west where high scoring playoff games are the norm, and then add the fact that we have had a lousy defense since any of the core-4 were drafted and, how often shifts are lost playing keep away in their own end because of it.

If the Big 4 functioned like they should, they would have no problem winning games 7-4 in the playoffs and outscore their mediocre back end and goaltending at least when the situation calls for it. They don’t do that. They lose a good percentage of their offensive firepower, crap out on special teams and have zero clutch ability. And they’re not fun to watch. At this point it’s obvious that they’re all duds in their own way relative to who you think they could be based on the regular season.

 

[francis246]

Just the fact that you are comparing “losing” Marner, ignoring everything I said we stand to benefit by moving on, I might add…..

….. to anything remotely resembling “post-Sundin era” says waaaaaay more about you than anything I could possibly say.

Come on, we have way more going for us than when we went through the Muskoka 5 debacle.

…… or are you now crapping on Matthews and Nylander because Marner is the bestest and he’s why they are any good, and they will both suck rocks without Marner to carry them?

Come on.

I view all three as equally disappointing.

Marner should have been moved after MTL.

There is no way to know whether moving him will be better but we do know with him we haven’t won. So we need to try without him now.

The cap space would be nice and futures but we can’t blow it on waste players. We need to identify and target players that will change the identity of this team.