Summer 2025: Rantanen or Marner

[Fantast100]

Marner.

 

[Fantast100]

Rantanen.

Too much wage.

 

[TheDoldrums]

On 8 year deals I think there’s a case that Marner is a better bet to age better. Bigger guy with weaker skating is a little riskier.

 

[Luigi Lemieux]

I'd feel more comfortable giving a big contract to Marner. He seems to create more and less dependent on any teammates.

 

[John Mandalorian]

There's one thing going for Marner over Rantanen this summer, and it's that I think his game might end up ageing better. Rantanen is super talented, but I can see the physical drop off affecting him more.

One could argue that Marner plays PK, while Rantanen doesn't. Fair, but I'm of the mind that you can find plenty of good middle/bottom-6 players to do that for you. I'd rather have my superstars more fresh for 5v5 and PP, and not have them do PK. But, this is a very divisive topic in the league. Teams have different philosophies. And if Marner is that much better than all of your other forwards on the PK, you do what you gotta do.

Outside of that, it's not really a close debate. Rantanen scores more goals, he scores more points overall, he has a more physical game with a bit of a mean streak when he happens to be on that mood, and his playoff pedigree speaks for itself.

All of that said, if both players are going to stay with their respective teams, Marner will get paid more once again.

After like the first week of the season, the Avs were missing 6 of their top-9 forwards. Yes, the most important players MacKinnon and Rantanen were healthy, but they basically had to play with 4th liners while the bottom-6 was filled with AHL players. The injury situation with forwards was actually more severe with Colorado than it was with Toronto.

Not necessarily. Rantanen is built like Nolan Ryan or Roger Clemens. Mitch Marner is built like Tim Lincecum. Bigger bodies often absorb punishment better than smaller ones. Not always but more than guys with smaller frames. Rantanen is kind of built like Jagr who played a while.

Sorry for the baseball reference. But the N Americans should know what this means.

As for the thread topic, I’d avoid Marner. Too much money and too much of a paper tiger.

 

[Leafshater67]

Marner plays in more situations. Imo he’s Much better defensively, including PK. More a well rounded game.

In the regular season

 

[I Hate Blake Coleman]

Marner seems like a quitter. I'd like to see him on a team where there are better, older leaders so he can follow in the playoffs first.

Rantanen is an easy choice.

 

[The Gr8 Dane]

I'm taking Rant but only by a bit , It's alot closer than some replys are making it out to be

 

[ghostingtaro]

rantanen and its not even close

 

[spiny norman]

Lopsided result.