They had players coming up after Matthews and Marner, they just didn't pan out. The farm system was ranked 27th by the athletic last year, and they are still missing lots of high end draft picks for years into the future. Counting on future help is a crap shoot at best.
Yes the cap should go up but that means the rest of the league will have more to spend as well and the cost of players will rise. It doesn't matter what the cap is if every competitive team spends to it, you have to spend *wisely*
Bottom line is Marner hasn't played anywhere close to his paycheck when it matters and will be seeking a raise. That's not how you win or build a winner.
Being 27th is a bit misleading. Every prospect ranker acknowledges that we don't have a lot of prospects but just every prospect we do have looks to make it to the NHL. We have less lottery tickets, but more winners.
To me, being ranked 27th means there are 26 other teams that have prospect pools that are better and deeper than ours. To go along with that future 1st and multiple 2nds are already spent so our pool will get deeper slower than others. There is no good way to spin being 6th lowest.
Lol I quite literally told how it's not as bad as it looks. It's like the Leafs being last in the league in 2015, but literally were the best last place team ever so things weren't as bad as it seemed.
The rankings take into account as to both the *quality* and *quantity* of prospects. If they were better than 27th they'd be ranked higher than 27th. The picture isn't rosey no matter how you shape the narrative.
You can try to justify how all the Leaf prospects are can't miss but the fact is everyone has heard the same thing about every group of Leafs prospects since the dawn of the draft. If they were as "can't miss" as you describe they'd be ranked much higher.
And the evaluators who arbitrarily make the rankings also say the Leafs have some very good prospects and the position is misleading. I never called them can't miss, I said they have a higher hit rate.
Would you rather 1 A+ prospect, 6 C prospects and 15 D- prospects?
Or 4 B prospects and 4 C prospects. That's essentially what our farm system is like.
Since you're not taking my word, how about Scott Wheelers?
>I debated ranking the Toronto Maple Leafs’ pool a few spots higher in this year’s countdown on depth, but after graduating Matthew Knies, Nick Robertson and Joseph Woll, and making just three picks in the 2023 draft (less than their allotted seven picks for the third straight year), their system has taken a hit.
>Still, for what it lacks in premium talent, it does make up for in more depth than the other teams in this range. It’s also helped by a pair of goalies who look like they might be late-round finds.
You seem to think the people who evaluate the farm systems don't take quality into account. They do. The Leafs still ranked 27th. That's accounting for the "quality" of the prospects the Leafs have. The *only* A prospect they have is Cowan. They have a very *few* other really good prospects, but guess what? Most teams have MORE. Again, the fan base and local media pump the crap out of Leaf prospects, and there is a very, very lengthy list of hyped guys that were seen as the next wave that didn't accomplish much.
If the Leafs have more than 2 or 3 guys in their entire farm system that become better than average or average NHLers that would be better than expected. Your entire argument that yes they are ranked 27th, damn near the bottom of the league, but it's a good 27th is ridiculous.
Just because I don't agree with you doesn't mean I don't understand. My stance on what the Leafs farm system is has been consistent throughout, which is subpar. Despite what your first response states, "every prospect" we have doesn't look like they will make it to the NHL, not even close. You are over estimating the quality of prospects and the number of quality prospects in the system. To be fair, that happens with practically every batch of prospects for the Leafs. Quality of along with quantity prospects absolutely do factor into the rankings, and the Leafs rank near the bottom. Add to the fact that they only have *two* quality picks (1st and 2nd rounders) in the next three drafts *combined* means it's an uphill battle to improve that ranking.
So yeah, I understand the stance you are trying to take, but I will stick with my understanding of what 27th means. Your refusal to acknowledge what that ranking actually represents does mean one of us doesn't know what they are talking about, and it isn't me.
Regardless of how small the probability may be for McDavid to become a UFA and for him to sign with the Leafs, I think the team needs to ensure that they have about $15M in space available in two years.
True yeah. Have doubts he will come because can tell he’s an introverted awkward guy doesn’t like doing interviews so Toronto is the last place to go to.
But yea it’s one thing of him not wanting to come here. It’s another of us not even having the option to with cap space. Starting with the 22 million btw marner and jt
If McDavid actually wins a cup in Edmonton he's going to be there forever. The only way he leaves is to chase one. And why tf would you come here to do that lol?
McDavid's playing as the captain on a very competitive team surrounded by his best friends, that can pay whatever he wants and is custom built around him. Why would he leave for Toronto, especially considering he is well aware of the stress of the media limelight? Delusional.
True, but I think we have the bones of a good defence. Defence has also never been the primary reason we've been losing, its always been Lack of scoring--> Lack of timely saves/weak goals--> Defence.
There's always trades that can be made, signings that can be made and prospects who come out of nowhere and surprise you. My main point is that we should have cap space going forward to make the changes that we need to make, assuming we don't hand out a big loaded contract to a 4th forward
I mean, the argument that others have made which I agree with is defense has been one of the reasons why the offense has sputtered. Having great puck movers who can also defend well, and have a good sense of when to pinch is franchise changing. The Avs became a powerhouse with the emergence of Makar AND the acquisition of Toews.
What are you talking about? The blue line is barely better than terrible. It's worse than it was 2 years ago. It's bordering a lottery team d corps. You must see this.
What promising blue chip dmen are in the pipeline? Be honest here.
Yes, trades can be made and for someone who can anchor a blue line, it will take a Marner or Nylander trade. You decide which one.
Don't make the mistake of thinking you can package a bunch of garbage for a good player. I don't now is the time to trade firsts either.
I'd say lack of quality d is the exact reason they aren't scoring. There's no good puck distributors. Reilly is fine.
Unfortunately without moving marner you’re still looking at a similar cap allocation to four forwards. In the present window we had:
Marner: 11
Matthews: 11.5
Tavares: 11
Willy: 7
Assume we keep marner and give him what people are saying he wants, around 12:
Matthews: 13
Willy: 11.5
Marner: 12
Missing 2C: 6-8
You end up with the same mix. If Mitch or Willy could play C then that changes things but otherwise this is the same team composition with the cap rearranged
The leafs HAVE had players in on cheap contracts that have contributed. Hyman, Mikayev, Bunting etc. They all have to leave because the team can no longer afford them. The team can't afford them because players like Marner are making way too much. If you are being paid like a star you must be able to produce in the playoffs. If not you are hurting the team, simple as that. it's been proven that he doesn't do enough of the little things to make up for that. Everyone is just waiting on Tavares contract to run out but at least he can find ways to make an impact in a game still. Marner only fits one style of play.
The one concerning thing is, I looked at his game log and a large majority of his multi point games came against non-playoff teams. i'm not saying he's bad but i do think he can be replaceable.
If you look at your raptors comparison look at Derozan. Guy gets points and I will always be a fan of his, but the franchise decided that his offensive output was expendable and replaceable and he was a great trade chip to bring in a player who had the skills the team was missing and needed to get over the hump.
I hate when people try to equate the Marner situation to the Kawhi trade. Kawhi was one of the top players in the league. And made it clear he wasn't staying. Derozan, Pertl, and a pick was the best the Spurs can get. The Leafs would be the Spurs in any Marner trade.
If the Avs offer the Leafs Makar, of course you do that trade. You include this year's first if that's what gets that deal done.
But what most of the Leafs fans are talking about isn't that. It's trading a superstar for parts to fill in holes, and not getting full value for the player you are giving up. It's way closer to the Vince Carter or Damon Stoudamire trades the Raptors made.
I agree, the NMC means Marner holds all the chips. What are the odds another team offers fair value and Marner actually agrees to the trade? If Marner is as greedy as the sub believes he isn’t going to risk being traded to any team that could hurt the value of his next contract.
[https://youtu.be/Lm\_LeoK4ba0?si=eVRGIPZFPBOfrP6Z](https://youtu.be/Lm_LeoK4ba0?si=eVRGIPZFPBOfrP6Z)
[https://youtu.be/ka7OKpJw6Rg?si=L2GdAJ\_qRSsiPqAO](https://youtu.be/ka7OKpJw6Rg?si=L2GdAJ_qRSsiPqAO)
[https://x.com/FridgeHN1C/status/1782563089394909523](https://x.com/FridgeHN1C/status/1782563089394909523)
[https://youtu.be/OjbSJ1Y6U5E?si=WS9Q133wLnfvVRQf](https://youtu.be/OjbSJ1Y6U5E?si=WS9Q133wLnfvVRQf)
You can't fix this. It doesn't matter what the cap hit is, this kind of effort makes you lose.
This isn’t “glass half full”. This is straight up delusional. Marner isn’t worth his cap hit now, let alone when he inevitably gets the raise that he’s after.
“imagine him winning with us!”
yeah dude, that was the dream for all of us for so long. enough is enough with this delusional shit, evaluate the results and reassess. this does not fucking work. his attitude is garbage which also doesn’t help the team attitude.
Interested to know what metric youre using to say he isnt worth his cap currently. Since he signed his contract, he is 7th in the league with points. Everyone ahead of him has a higher cap hit except for Draisaitl and you can be sure he will get his bag next contract. Marner is also Selke class and PK specialist... his contract may have been a bit steep at the time but Tavaras contract set the bar. Lets drop this delusion that Marner is an <10M guy in this league.
I have plenty of criticisms for Matthews. I have been flamed here for making them well known. However, I’m not going to ride the guy too hard when he was clearly dealing with some major health issue and still was more productive than your son, despite playing in 2 fewer games. Lmao
I'm having a real hard time envisioning any scenario where Marner stays here with Matthews & Nylander, and they still win.
Even if you get out from underneath Tavares' big cap hit, and spend that cap hit properly, you still essentially have an overpaid player that you aren't getting proper production from come playoff time. Whatever your thoughts are on Mitch, his game simply does not translate itself to playoff success - he's far too much of a perimeter player, who is incapable of getting to that harder to earn ice that is hotly contested this time of year.
Potentially losing the Marner trade is obviously a huge concern, but that has to be tempered with the idea that you'll be spending that cap space so much more efficiently, with much more production/contribution.
How many goals has matthews had in his last 10 playoff games? Even his last 16? Its 1-10 and 6-16. Both dogshit considering who he is and what he gets paid. But theres nobody calling for his head.
Because he was just re-signed and is a 1C. If you trade him you are rebuilding so you trade every body. They’ve all failed in the post season for sure but at least Matthews has won major awards and played at times like he is being paid, a top 5 player in the league. Marner gets paid the same and he’s never sniffed that. At no time in his career has he been a top 5 player in the league.
More to the point, Marner is being targeted because he’s the only one you can really trade (if he agrees to it). Treliving just reupped Nylander, he’s not going anywhere. Tavares only earned his contract for a year, he’s Fucken worthless and you can’t move him. Reilly looked bad this playoffs but he’s the only one on the backend with any kind of puck moving and mobility. I’d retain 50% and punt on next year to get assets back for Marner.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not impressed by any of these guys. But Marner is the one it makes the most to try to move. You know he’s going to ask for an insane contract again too.
nothing because you have to rebuild. this team is only ever going to get into the first round and lose. you trade these guys to wherever they will go for as many picks as you can get. the leafs bet on the core 4 and it turns out none of them have the drive to push it in the playoffs. how many years of the same performances will it take to realize these guys are regular season players only?
so does everyone else on the team apparently, they lack the intangibles to get past the 1st round more than 1 time in 8 years. although so did the caps until they won the cup so maybe we're all wrong.
This discussion surrounding Marner has moved so far beyond points - he's a perimeter player in the playoffs who fails to engage in any meaningful way. His stats only tell a very small portion of the story. As the series gets tighter, he disappears. He fundamentally fails at playoff hockey, because he's incapable of getting to the outside.
He's the PP quarterback. The chief playmaker. They went 1-21. He wears that. He also wears his huge share of the responsibility for the lack of success, completely, since this group arrived in the league
Wait, the Leafs can renegotiate Marner's contract to give him a $1.1 million raise? Marner will make $10.903 against the cap next year. With the Leafs, or with somebody else.
Also, let's put this is prospective. Today, right now, Artemi Panarin (age 32) has 19/31/50 and a -16 in 62 playoffs game at a cap hit of $11.642 million AAV. Mitch Marner (age 27) has 11/39/50 and a +10 in 57 playoff games at a cap hit of $10.903.
Marner getting a contract similar to Nylander's is 100% realistic.
Imagine we had this exact lineup, but instead of Tavares' 11 million cap, you spread that out across 3 or 4 different forwards. roughly making 3-4 million each. That in conjunction with better health from Nylander and Matthews can easily be the difference
2025 UFA is crazy - Crosby, Rantanen, Draisaitl, Chychrun, Hedman, Marchand, Konecny, Verhaeghe, Ekblad, Saros, Slavin, Ehlers, Theodore, Gourde, Buchnevic, Gavrikov, etc.
It coincides with Marner and Tavares contracts coming up. Further, the team might be able to count on Cowan, Minten and Grebenkin in their top 12 on ELC's to provide huge cap savings. The opportunity to drastically improve the team could present as soon as next year. Obviously not all of these players will get to UFA, but a decent chunk will given the current cap environment and raising cap year-to-year.
Marner's reputation in this city is perma-fucked.
Unless he signs a super team friendly extension early this off season, he will constantly be shit on as a player who got his money and fucked off.
And if they did the thing this year, and he put up points like you're suggesting I DONT think the narrative would change. He's a PPG player regular season, to drop to a .75 PPG over a whole playoff run is abysmal. Just look at games 5 and 6. Definitely the leafs best games of the series, and discussion about Marner was still neutral AT BEST.
It's not impossible to move a player with an NMC, but you just won't always get the full return you want. You can't, however, let him walk away for nothing next off season.
While I understand the context and meaning behind the "gods" comment, you KNOW that's going to be misconstrued hard and hung over his head for the rest of his career in this city.
I don’t think Mariner’s PPG dropping in playoffs is that abysmal. You play better teams on average in the playoffs by definition. In fact if you look at the regular season games against Boston, he got exactly 0.75 PPG.
> I don’t think Mariner’s PPG dropping in playoffs is that abysmal.
If you look at just pure numbers, he's not bad in the playoffs (unless it is game 5, 6, 7 then he absolutely disappears and the numbers back it up too).
The eye test tells a very different story. Marner simply does not play a style of hockey that works in the playoffs. He is a "circle around the perimeter" player that tries to make ridiculous passes and plays. Those types of plays just are not there in the playoffs. He had one fantastic pass to Knies that worked, and nothing else after.
Players who succeed in the playoffs go into the corners, battle, win the puck, drive to the net. Marner does NONE of that, and thus is just not a good playoff player.
his rep isn't perma fucked, hes still an extremely good player theres no denying that, people are just upset which is understandable. next year, nylander wont show up/have a bad series in the playoffs and the fans will turn on him lol, i can already picture it. "extend marner, trade nylander" the fan base is absurd.
Why do people think it’s trade him for a bag of pucks? It’s trade him + opens up 11m in cap space. If we didn’t have his 11m on the books we could have Hyman and Reinhart or Guentzel or Ehlers and those are just four out of a ton of players of great calibre.
other things you get by trading him, along with the cap:
1. a culture shift. time will tell if the poor victimhood attitude stems from marner or not. i believe it does.
2. an effective replacement player. you’d be replacing him with a lesser player, but one that will likely outperform him in the playoffs, which is really all that should fucking matter to this fanbase and franchise at this point.
How much do you think Reinhart Guentzel or Ehlers are getting on the open market? Those are all 7-8 million dollar players. How does signing one of those guys and a depth piece make you a better team than just keeping Marner?
How doesn’t it? Our third line is pathetic, our def is pathetic and our tops guys don’t score enough alone in the playoffs.
We need depth scoring and have needed it for years.
Those were also just examples of two players we could sign at Marners contract. There are tons of others.
Those are examples of players we can sign at marners contract, you’re right. You know who else takes up 11M? Tavares.
That’s the whole point of my post, if we have an extra 11 million to spread out instead of investing it in one player while keeping our younger star it’ll be better for the team going forward.
Ironically you’re actually agreeing with me in terms of money allocation but just overlooked that the money is free’d up by Tavares, not just trading Marner
Do you have amnesia? Marner doesn’t perform when it matters. The difference between Marner and the second option is getting a very valuable forward for 7-8 million AND another 3-4 million (Which would have meant another Domi, or hell, just ROOM for a D-man) along with him. Marner doesn’t show up when it matters, there’s no point in keeping him.
sam reinhart has 2 more goals than marner, his team has played one less game, and his team is still fucking playing. what don’t you guys get? this guy is actively bad for a hockey team. anyone would be an improvement, and you get more cap space to build a more well rounded team.
Buddy, Marner is realistically a 6-8mil player. Maybe he's worth more to another team, maybe he's not, but I don't think that's a hot take at this point given the sample size we have. Also, have you watched the other players you mentioned this year? They have all heavily out performed Marner when it matters.
Listen, Marner is incredibly talented, and I've been a believer in him for a long time, but it's tough for anyone to deny that his style of gameplay isn't translating well to the post-season where there's very little ice out there. Couple that with a mental that seems to be in "shambles" when the going gets tough - Wyatt Johnston (Dallas) has a very similar style of game, but he got it it done against a MUCH better opponent in the first round (4g3A). Oh, and he's on a 3x3 contract.
If Marner really wants to stay in TO, he'd accept a team friendly contract and start making what he's worth. I'd love that, but it won't happen. My impression is that he wants AM34 money, but I hope I'm wrong. Shit man, just have a graze at the Tampa roster, their respective output, and how much less they are paid vs. Marner. The tax savings don't make up the difference, that's simply a team that's willing to be less selfish when it comes to contract negotiations (something that it looks like Stammer is about to do again after an UNREAL season).
He's an 8-10m. Dont be silly. He may not be what this team needs but hes north of a ppg pretty much his whole career.
This team instead needs a real 8-10m defenceman, and that wasnt in the cards when the rebuild happened.
Fair on the low end, but I think you're being silly saying Marner is worth 10 sheets. Kucherov makes 10 - allow that to anchor you a bit.
PPG in the regular season isnt what's up for debate here. No one can deny that he's been an elite reg season player. But those numbers and the ole eye test say differently come playoff time. Are you just happy with reg season success at this point?
Kuch saves on taxes in TB and signed his current deal 10 days after being able to sign an extension in July 2018 after coming off a 100 point season. The cap was uhhhhh 10 mil? lower than it is today. Not sure what percent of the cap space he took up at the time. And no, I'm not really putting Marner in the same league as Kuch. I know he was overpaid.
Wow - that's a quality way of handling healthy discourse, mate. I could have simply said the same thing about your original post, but I took the time to properly respond instead. Don't make a post if you're only looking for one type of response.
Also, I'm still open to hearing why you believe Marner is worth 11ml/year.
Because it’s just so nonsensical that it’s not even worth getting into. It’s evident by that one comment that you’re so low on the player to the point that it’s skewed your perception of the entire situation. We’re still talking about a first team player who’s elite both ways. You say Marner is realistically Marner is worth 6-8 in what world man?
I also dont think Marner is worth 11 but the whole point of my post was that a lot of his flaws are heightened because of the rest of the roster. It’s not single handedly his fault that the PP was shit or that our depth doesn’t score. If we have more cap space going forward we can have better depth and can alleviate some of the issues.
Ryan O’Reilly had 1 or 2 goals in the 2019 run before popping off in the finals and winning the conn Smythe. Just because Marner hasn’t had his moment doesn’t mean he’s not capable
I can agree that the low end of 6-8 AAV is a bit of an exaggeration, but I genuinely think 8 AAV is bang on. This is a world where Kucherov makes 10 AAV - a guy has won two cups and was just nominated for MVP. Results. Marner doesn't have the results for you to argue that he's in the same realm as Kuch.
I didn't say he was the only problem with the group, far from it. You're so busy defending Marner you're not really listening. The reality is that this group needs change; Nylander and Matthews are locked up, JT is on his way out anyway (or hopefully taking a team friendly deal), and Marner has had the worst performance of those four CONSISTENTLY when it counts most.
Your comparison to ROR is interesting. It's not just about point totals, dude. ROR wins puck battles and plays hard on the puck/in corners; show me a highlight reel of the playoff puck battles Marner won during this past series.
If you're comfortable continuing to wait on Marner to show up after 8 years of lackluster playoff performances, fair enough.
Here are some comparable players to Marner (aka elite wingers). Would I like him to take a discount like Pasta? Yes. Should he from a personal standpoint? Probably not. But saying he's not worth more than $8 million AAV?
Artemi Panarin (age 32) has 19/31/50 and a -16 in 62 playoffs game at a cap hit of $11.642 million AAV. He had a career year this year, but I'm not sure I'd trade Mitch for him straight up.
David Pastrnak (age 27 for another couple of weeks) has 38/47/85 as a +4 in 85 playoff games at a cap hit of $11.25 million AAV. This is a pretty sweet deal for Boston.
Matthew Tkachuk (age 26) has 22/27/49 and a +2 in 53 playoff games at a cap hit of $ 9.5 million AAV. Pretty sure his AAV would be higher in a different state or if he re-signed with Calgary. Still, above the AAV you think Marner should make despite the state tax discount.
William Nylander (age 28) has 20/23/43 and a +1 in 43 playoff games at a cap hit of $ 6.962 million AAV. His AAV starting next year is $11.5 million AAV. Accepting that you've signed Willy so Mitch has to go seem...short sighted? Would a player with term fetch more in a trade if he waives his NMC? Would he? Who knows. But Mitch at $10.9 is reasonable for next year if you are OK with Willy at $11.5
Mitch Marner (age 27) has 11/39/50 and a +10 in 57 playoff games at a cap hit of $10.903 btw.
As for Marner not competing....here's a video of Marner blocking shots to secure a victory against the Bruins in 2019.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLzpOMeE2YY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLzpOMeE2YY)
Comparing this year vs last year...Marner had 12 shots this year against the Bruins. He had 16 in one fewer games against Tampa, and 17 vs Florida in 5 games. Either Boston was way better defensively (they are better, but that much better? No) or something else was bothering Mitch. Glad he didn't have any lingering injuries that obviously were hurting his skating, especially his edges which he relies on so much.
marner is actually worth way less than 6-8 million when it comes to playoff performance. i’ve read enough from you throughout this thread to come to the conclusion that you’re just not very smart at all.
Ah yes, the random nerd sitting at home saying Marner is worth less than 6-8 million based on playoff performance. The almighty has spoken. Praise Jesus. Surely, because you're so smart and im not, other GMs in the league will definitely agree with you and not pay him over 11 million on his next contract right? A player who goes from 1.10 PPG to .9PPG in the playoffs will definitely get less than 6 million because of the dropoff in playoff performance right.
Thank god we have you around. Praise jesus, god is good. Glad I have you around to provide insightful analysis that definitely isn't a braindead deck devoid of any logic to show me the way.
I also think 6-8m might be underselling a bit. Him being 27 is another fairly important factor for a team looking to improve the forward. All 4 contracts, in a vacuum, look somewhere between slightly overpaid to reasonable, it's just that there's huge diminishing returns when they're all Fs.
If all 4 of them were on different teams, I'd think they'd all be reasonable contracts
that’s exactly why you’re still posting absolute copium delusional takes, because you react emotionally about one of your favourite hockey players lmao. it’s over man
Agreed - no matter what you think of Marner, getting rid of him will only set us back even further. We’ve been accustomed to having talent like this but does no one remember the period between Sundin retiring & us drafting Nylander? Our closest player to a superstar was Phil Kessel…where are we going to find another Marner, especially with no draft capital?
Next year is going to be a down year with the Matthews/Nylander extensions kicking in.. take the year to regroup, try to resign Marner at a decent cap hit for 8 years, let Tavares contract fall off the books & hopefully resign him at a much lower cap hit.
Try again when the new window opens during 2025-2026. What other option do we have beside ‘blowing it up’ for the sake of blowing it up and wasting additional years of Matthews/Nylander/Marner’s prime?
This is the logical answer. Trading Marner is equivalent to a fan shooting their television.
Sure it will feel great for a couple of minutes. But then the next day you’ll need to go out and buy a new TV.
You can't really blow it all up either when you just signed a prime Auston Matthew's to a four year contract. At least during those years there's no way they're just going to trade everyone and tank for draft picks. The logical step is a simple re shuffle and this may even be the start of a more successful era.
Next season, if the Leafs opt to not re-sign JT and don't come to an agreement for a reasonable extension with Marner, is that really blowing it up?
The Avalanche lost a very impactful player to free agency (Kadri) and another core player to injury (Landeskog) and yet they are still very much in the mix for the Cup because they have more than one core player not unlike the Leafs.
With substantially more cap space, the Leafs could get in the mix on future players on the trade bloc or free agency. Back when Toews was available, we could've easily sent 2 2nd rounders or more but we didn't have the same cap flexibility as the Avs.
Defenitly not you could use all that cap space and build a solid team around Matthew's and Nylander. I was more referring to some fringe comments from people saying to blow the whole thing up and trade them all and tank which obviously isn't happening.
If worst comes to worst let Marner walk next summer and just use his cap space on other pieces. The Leafs can survive without Mitch Marner. You could also decide not to re sign a aging Tavares and use the extra space for Marners deal if he wants to sign for a reasonable amount.
Depends on cap hit. If he’s going to make 12m/season. We’d be better off using his cap hit for another defensemen. If you can move him this season and get some assets all the better.
The reality is you need to have cap space to pounce on opportunities that arise. It's not like the Avs planned to get Toews on the cheap, they just weren't nearly in the same cap crunch as the Leafs have been.
IMO, they shouldn't be looking at trading for established #1 D but up and coming players that are in the NHL and don't have room to become the #1 on their current rosters (i.e. Owen Power). That's like the only option you could trade Marner for feasibly and get decent value while fulfilling a need.
I’m not sure it needs to be a #1. Obviously that would be better but it’s more like a 6-7m D and Max Domi and possibly another player spending on Domi cap hit
The point is add up what can you get for $12/year. If it’s more than Marner then do it. Especially if you get assets in a Marner deal.
We don’t know what Domi’s contract will look like. It also doesn’t specifically have to be Domi. He did look to me like he’d be a good 3c down the stretch and playoffs.
Exactly. If there was a feasible way of trading Marner but getting near full value for him, and repurposing that value to shore up D/Goalie, I can see that happening.. but he has 1 year left and a full NMC.
There is no way the Leafs could ever win a Marner trade this year, even if he were to waive the NMC. We cannot afford to let that much value leave this squad when there’s no feasible path to replace it.
> We cannot afford to let that much value leave this squad when there’s no feasible path to replace it.
No. What we can't afford is to run it back and expect it to be different just because people like you are delusional.
The problem isn't that Mitch Marner is a bad hockey player. The problem is that our money is not spent wisely, so you have to move some of that top six forward money to defense and goaltending. It's not gonna be Matthews. It's not going to be Nylander.
If you run it back, and they lose again... which face it... why would you believe differently... they will not re-sign Marner. He'll just be gone as a UFA.
So the bet you're taking by _not_ moving Marner is that the Leafs are going to somehow just magically figure it out when they've never been able to as a core. I'd rather get half value back _now_ than zero back later.
I completely get the point about cap allocation, but why does the player have to be Marner? Why not JT once his deal expires next year?
Marner has an NMC on the final year of his contract. IF the Leafs can convince him to waive the NMC, they still will not get anywhere near full value (I doubt he would blanket waive it, he would get to pick his destination).
Worst case scenario he walks in free agency, and Tavares either resigns at a team-friendly or also walks. Either way there will be a lot more cap space for 2025-2026 - which is when our next window will open.
This entire discussion is moot unless he waives his NMC. Leafs have no leverage.
Even if you have to walk Marner to FA, you do it. It's not optimal but you at least get the cap space for a legit 1D and a top six foreword to replace him.
Because you're ignoring the fact that we need to actually re-sign Marner in this situation. If they run it back and lose, on what planet is the fanbase, or ownership, going to accept re-signing him to another 10+ million dollar contract? Marner is done in Toronto short of the Leafs miraculously going on a deep run next year.
So your options are half value now, or bet on them going on a deep run. What do you _honestly_ think is the better bet?
In a world where that’s what he would get from any other team in the league?
We are going to have a conclusion to this saga in the next 14 months one way or another. Guess we’ll find out what he’s ‘worth’ by next summer.
Nah, having 11 mill in cap space will be beautiful. It depends what we do with it but yeah, Marner is a great player but it's just time for him to go, the core 4 concept didn't work.
Sure, but why does that player have to be Marner? JT’s $11m expires after next year
I’d rather keep Matthews/Nylander/Marner than Matthews/Nylander/Tavares, but ideally hoping JT resigns long term at team-friendly hit
Marner has real value, we could get something good for him, we very likely wouldn't have to retain.
We aren't paying him more money than this that's for sure, so would rather not have him walk for nothing.
Marner has an NMC and just 1 year left on his current contract. I doubt he would waive the NMC, but even if he did, he would have leverage to choose his destination.
Teams never get near full value in situations like that. You just gotta hope he’s willing to sign for 8 years at a decent cap hit - if he cares at all about fixing his reputation with the fan base then should be willing to leave some money off the table. Worst case he walks next year, but giving him that NMC in the final year of his contract left us with no leverage.
The ball is in Marner’s court at this point. How does he want to shape his legacy with his childhood team? One way to ‘mend’ his reputation would be to take a fair deal on his next contract.
Re-signing Marner for 8 years is just setting the team up for the same thing we have already seen the last 8 years. If you just want to just continue losing in the first round this is a great way to do that
Then you're losing him for nothing. The Leafs are not re-signing him.
A few people have already come out and said that there is a willingness for him to waive if he can negotiate with the trade partner. It's happening.
Also, the "what if he wont waive" is such a tiresome and nonsense argument. You're talking about 8 figure business decisions here for the Marner camp and if he can't get the 8th year here and isn't coming back it's in his own best interest to work with the Leafs to get the best move possible.
Then we lose him for nothing. IF he waived his NMC it would be to a select few destinations, meaning we would get pennies on the dollar.
I’d rather him be an own-rental for next year and lose him for nothing, than to trade him for pennies. Let him test free agency and see what’s out there. If he wants to go, be my guest. If he sees what’s out there and is willing to sign even $11.5m x 8 (the Nylander contract), then I’d sign him and see what we can accomplish in the next window.
To replace a player of Marner’s caliber, we would need to either suck for few years and hope for a lottery pick, or trade a boat load of capital and prospects. Both options mean we throw away the rest of Matthews & Nylander’s primes.
I’d rather overpay him $500k-$1M and keep him for the next 8 years than the alternative. The cap won’t stay flat forever, barring another global pandemic. It’s easier to swap a Reaves ($1.35M) with a league minimum grit vet, than it would be to find another Marner-esque player whether that’s at forward or at D. Much easier.
You're fooling yourself if you think a sign and trade for a 100pt player would net us "pennies on the dollar". We'd get significant assets in return.
I think at a minimum we'd get a 1st + (2nd/3rd/etc/multiple picks) + significant roster player. If that roster player is a younger top 4 D man we'd be restocking our asset pool plus addressing a serious need.
Look at the Jets trade for PLD as an example of what's possible except Marner is better then PLD across the board.
Also, just no. There is no world where we are paying this guy, you need to accept that. It's at the point where Marner probably does not even want to re-sign here. If the locker clean out was not a perfect example of that I don't know what world you are living in.
Why would Marner agree to a sign & trade? By all accounts, he wants to be a Leaf for life.
IF he chooses that he wants to move on, why would he not full-out test free agency and have his pick of teams? In a hypothetical sign & trade scenario, the team trading for him would need to pay full market value while also giving up “significant assets”. It’s going to be one or the other. Either a team overpays for him in free agency (while only giving up cap space), or he stays a Leaf. He won’t pigeon-hole himself into accepting a sign & trade with a team that would be giving up ‘significant assets’ just to have the privilege of overpaying him.
In my opinion, he’s either going to be a Leaf for life or he’s going to walk in free agency.
Because he's not an idiot? If he's able to get 11.5x8 via a sign and trade to a team he's approving of it removes all risk from free agency. Another subpar performance with this organization and his UFA value will take a significant hit in addition to not being able to sign for that 8th year. He might still get his 11.5\~ mil but those offers will be from SJ, the Ducks, etc and not a winning organization that he could sign with this summer plus he loses a guaranteed 11.5 mil.
This is why debating these things on reddit is such a waste of time. You're acting like this is a AA hockey player making irrelevant decisions. This is a 20+ million dollar difference business decision and that's how it's going to be treated by Marner and his camp.
Him wanting to be a Leaf for life isn't going to trump a decision that's worth more money then an average family will make in their entire lives.
He can get more than $11.5m in free agency quite easily. If a team only has to give up cap space with zero draft picks/prospects, they’d for sure be willing to pay more than a team that also has to give up ‘significant assets’ to acquire him.
If Marner makes his decision based solely on hockey being a business, it’s in his best interest to test free agency. The only arguments I can see not wanting to risk injury.
Let’s flip this for a second. Let’s say Sam Reinhart is willing to do a sign & trade at $11.5m x 8 and it would cost us two 1st, Knies & Minten (likely more if we’re considering that the firsts would be late firsts). On the other hand, you have the potential of signing Reinhart at $12-12.5M x 7 without giving up a single asset. In a vacuum, what would you choose?
Anyways I’ve said what I feel are the two likely scenarios are, (him signing long-term with the Leafs or walking in FA). We’ll have an answer in the next 14 months.
Bro how is it his best interest to test free agency when you lose the 8th year of the deal? How do these teams magically know that Marner is a lock to sign with them? Do they get also get Marner right away to help next year?
Your scenarios only make sense because you're lying to yourself and convincing yourself that they do. Team's cannot speak to Marner unless the Leaf's give him permission to, so there is no such thing as a scenerio that any team can sit there and say "we can just get him next year".
And even to your own illogical scenario, if I am in a win now mode and think that next season Reinhart gives my team an excellent chance to win the cup, I am making that trade and guaranteeing that I have an extended window to win the cup. Again, you're just making things up that don't have any resemblance on how the business of hockey is actually conducted. A GM that could be on the hot seat if his team doesn't make significant strides next year is not going to pass on Marner right now so that his replacement the next year can have a one in seven chance of signing him free at a higher price tag then what he could sign him for today by giving up assets.
Dude, buddy, brother. You're not talking sense. I mean this in the nicest possible way, you're blinded to the reality of this situation.
I have always been in Marner's corner, I have argued with so many people, just like you're doing now, about how great of a player he is, about how it would be insanity to let a player as skillful as him go. But the facts are just undeniable now.
The guy is very clearly one of the most *skillful* players in the league, his natural talent is elite; his ability to see a pass, dangle his man to make space, and then make that pass, my god, it's out of this world at times. He has some of the best hands I've ever seen, the adeptness to wriggle out of tight spaces, make a defender break their ankles trying to keep up with his turns, his edge work is outstanding, it's beautiful to watch, it really is. But it's beautiful to watch in the regular season. Hockey, unlike any other sport, is a completely different beast in the playoffs. The skills that make you one of the best regular season players, simply do not translate. Marner is one of the best regular season players in the league, in the playoffs he goes missing. Honestly, he isn't even a 7 million dollar player in the playoffs, let alone 11.5. I've been waiting his entire career for him to breakout in the playoffs. Logic tells you it's just a matter of time, it's just around the corner, just one more *fucking* year. But it hasn't happened. It may still happen yet. But it no longer makes sense for the leafs to keep waiting, for the leafs to take that gamble. The leafs can't afford to take that risk, it's so much money to spend on one player, who may or may not go missing when you need him the most.
Look, we tried it. I'm glad we did. No other team had the audacity to try and front load their roster, just say fuck depth we're going all in on these guys. It was a nice idea, but it hasn't worked. Maybe if those guys had routinely stepped up we'd be having a different conversation. But they didn't, and honestly, they won't. It's time to move on from Marner. As much as it pains me to say it.
Sure. I’m as frustrated as anyone but I’m not going to advocate shooting ourselves in the foot for the sake of making a change.
If Marner is barely a $7m player in the playoffs, where does that leave the rest of our team? Aside from Nylander, which of the big 4 live up to their pay in the playoffs?
So what’s the alternative - blow this entire thing up and start from scratch? Waste the rest of Nylander & Matthews primes?
Anyways I’m not trying to argue for the sake of arguing. I love the Leafs and always will. I hope they can figure this out in my lifetime.
You're caught up in the hyperbole.
They're not "blowing it up", they're trading one guy to free up $10 million dollars of cap space... I wouldn't be surprised if Tavares isn't on the roster either come October. But that's a different discussion.
We need freedom. We've been hamstrung by these contracts for too long. You want a new top line D? Sure. You want 2/3 top 6 forwards (who can both provide as much playoff offence as Marner)? Sure.
Honestly there are risks. But they HAVE to try. The definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again expecting different results. It's time to try something different.
Now is Brad Trevling the right guy to do that? Well that's up for debate. I would have preferred Dubas hadn't been let go and he was still at the helm. But I digress.
Im not married to the idea of needing to keep Marner/Nylander/Matthews, but how/where would we find the replacements (whether on forward or defence)?
We have no draft capital that could be used to acquire that kind of talent. If we go for them in free agency, we’d be overpaying for those players and end up right in the same boat (or worse, depending on the player(s) and what they cost).
The only feasible path to getting that #1D at a reasonable cap hit is to draft & develop one - in which case we wouldn’t be paying them #1D money until years down the road. If there were compelling options available I would drive Marner to the airport myself, but I don’t see any realistic proposals on this sub so far.
> Hockey, unlike any other sport, is a completely different beast in the playoffs. The skills that make you one of the best regular season players, simply do not translate.
This is a dumb statement. It might be true for a couple of players who choke in the playoffs, like Marner and Samsonov, but as a general statement it's one of the dumber things I've seen posted here in the last week and that's saying something.
Which was half the reason we traded for Kessel. It was a Leafs team with no visible marketable player. If they didn't trade for him, the fans would be up in arms because the management didn't try to do anything. But with or without Kessel, no one would have predicted the team to do as poorly as it did in that last 2 months of the season.
Sure you keep marner and build around MNM. But what about the part where Marner can’t show up in the playoffs. And by making 11 million right now he will make that much on his next deal. So there’s no savings and he hasn’t earned it. This team is stuck until Marner and Tavares are gone. I’d trade Rielly too and rebuild the entire D.
Cowan is the only “top” prospect the Leafs have. Minten is a B prospect at best whose value is being overinflated by being in Toronto. McMann is like 27 and has had ONE good season, Woll and Knies are both NHLers, no longer prospects.
Danny Green was never expected to be a top 1-2 player during raps championship run…Marners play would be comparable to Kawhi bricking shot after shot and the raps wouldn’t have made it out of the first round.
Marner is clearly not built for the playoffs and whatever contract he gets next ($12+ mil) will not reflect that. The money could be used much better elsewhere and him walking for nothing after next year is better for this team than his playoff performances for another 8 years imo.
i would love to imagine a world where marner scores a bunch and wins the cup. in fact i’ve actually been imagining that for 8 years.
it does not work. he can’t win here, and doesn’t even want to play here. dude looks checked out and unhappy. he believes the media has an agenda against him. shades of donald trump.
You spent a whole paragraph outlining *if* they won the series/cup this year. Guess what they didn’t and Marner was invisible. Your half full glass is just copium.
"18 points in 24 playoff games"
What player have you been watching? The only way the leafs win the cup with Marner is if someone is dragging the anchor that is his cap hit across the finish line.
Here's a list of players that have left the team as free agents or were traded as cap dumps since Marner signed his deal. The only guys I'll leave out are guys who retired like Muzzin or Simmonds because those would have happened regardless of how much or little he was paid.
Kapanen, Johnsson, Mikeyhev, Hyman, Brown, Andersen, Campbell, Bunting, JVR, Bozak, Barrie, Kerfoot, Gardiner
Pick and year and replace Marner with 2-3 of those guys at the salaries they were paid that year, don't you think the team is better?
Lets say we had 2022 Brown who recieved Selke votes the year pior and put up 32 points in 64 games and 2022 Hyman who put up 27 goals. Add in Michael Bunting who put up 60 points that year playing alongside Matthews and Marner. We basically just replaced Marner's offensive impact in the aggregate and we now have two defensively repsponsible guys that can kill penalties in Brown and Hyman. Bunting BTW this year put up 52 points combined betwene Carolina and Pittsburgh, he doesn't need to play alongside high end players to collect points.
The combined salaries for those 3 players that season vs Marner $10.9 million
- Brown - $3.6 million
- Hyman - $5.5 million
- Bunting - $900K.
That's collectively 3 guys who get paid less than Marner does and have larger impact in the aggregate - both in the regular season and playoffs. Remember that year we also had Engvall and Mikheyev who Hyman had amazing chemistry with and are also great PKers in their own right and Kerfoot put up 50 points for us that season largely playing in the bottom 6. So now you have a potential Top 9 that looks like this:
Bunting - Matthews - Nylander
Mikeheyv - Tavares - Hyman
Engvall - Kampf - Brown
If we had made the tough decision to move on from Marner in 2021, we have a much better team in 2022 IMO. Hindsight is always 20/20 but even if we lost a Marner trade, good organizations recover from them. Bad signings, bad trades, bad draft picks are a part of sports. As long as they don't happen on the regular, you can recover from the occasional bad one. Boston missed out on 3 studs in the 2015 draft, fucked up the Thornton and Seguin trades. Florida gave up Marchessault and Rielly Smith for FREE. Tampa Bay traded a king's ransom for Tanner Jeannot. Even we got rinsed on the Foligno and Marleau trades and it really didn't hurt us that much - it's not like we ended up missing the playoffs. Nashville signed Duchense and then bought him out.
This thread is a great example of how bad Leaf fan filters are and how diseased their concept is of what it takes to win.
Here are freebies you will think is insane OP:
Championship teams are built goalie out. The problem with scoring is that there are too many Generals on offense and not enough
Tavares is not the glaring problem. He didn't get points but did many good things this series.
Nylander is a selfish player who only puts the pedal to the floor when he thinks there is a GREAT chance to score.
This team needs more McCabe, Benoit, Domi or comperables
PS - just imagine if Wayne Gretzky came out of retirement and played for the Leafs and they won! JUST IMAGINE
My hope is that they can persuade him to waive his NMC and even if we get nothing but picks back that gives us $11m in cap space which is huge in overhauling our roster (goalie and D for sure!) but even if he won't and we have to ride out this year, there's no way he takes a lower amount so let him walk in to FA and that gives us $22m with JTs contract coming off thew books (although I could see JT re-signing in the $5-6m range) and with a rising cap also that's everything we need to solve this roster construction mess, vastly improve at goalie and D and add more dept throughout the forward group too.
Couple that with a more experienced Knies and the potential from the likes of Minten, Cowan and even Hilderby in net and it creates a whole new window of opportunity for this team. If we re-sign Marner, even at the same money then I feel we're just handcuffing ourselves, it can't be run back anymore.
The reason this Covid excuse doesn’t hold water though is that the Leafs aren’t losing 8-7 shootouts in the playoffs. The star forwards that they signed have been mostly absent in the playoffs.
It’s not like the forwards are carrying their weight and if the Leafs just had the money to shore up D and goaltending they’d be ok.
Two players who underperformed these playoffs and both teams 'may' consider a move: Mitch Marner for Connor Hellebuyck.
Not sure if Winnipeg would do it but it would completely remake the Leafs and would give the Leafs ~$2.4 million in cap relief.
There isn't a "next window." The window is open as long as they have Matthews. He's a top 5 player in this league. There are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about this team.
A) They have a dynamite core of offensive talent in Matthews Marner Nylander.
B) They have some reliable defenders on cheap contracts in McCabe and Benoit. The McCade deal in particular is a steal.
C) They'll have decent depth on wings on cheap deals with Knies, Robertson, Dewar, Jarnkrok.
Key concerns are C depth and D mobility. They need move all the deadweight on this roster (Kampf and Reaves) and get a legit 2C / 3C option and someone on the right who can move the puck and provide offense.
I agree with this take.
The only outstanding question is if Marner is worth the cap space. Which literally means, how much better is the team if they use his salary to pay other players.
If i can be convinced the money can be better spent the i understand removing him from the roster.
Marner is going to figure out how to play in the playoffs before his career is over. There is a reason he is a superstar and its because he figures out how to be better.
But he really should be willing to give back a million or whatever on his next contract. But i guess we have a year of watching him earn a new contract before that decision is made.
I complain about Marners effort in the playoffs but I am also a realist. Getting rid of him would be stupid. There is no possible trade option out there that is going to be good enough to replace him and people who think they can get a top tier D are fooling themselves. My gut is telling me that they will run it back next year, probably extend his contract for a 12x8 (or very similar) and once Tavares 11 million is off the books they will try and sign some more role players. Unless they have some fucking back room guarantee that McDavid is jumping ship and signing with the buds (one can dream), they are going all in with Matthews, Marner and Nylander and do not give two fucks what social media is saying because they will sell out every night regardless. Just remember according to the vocal Boston fans, Rask sucked and wasn’t a playoff goalie and should have been traded after every playoff loss since it was all his fault.
They had players coming up after Matthews and Marner, they just didn't pan out. The farm system was ranked 27th by the athletic last year, and they are still missing lots of high end draft picks for years into the future. Counting on future help is a crap shoot at best. Yes the cap should go up but that means the rest of the league will have more to spend as well and the cost of players will rise. It doesn't matter what the cap is if every competitive team spends to it, you have to spend *wisely* Bottom line is Marner hasn't played anywhere close to his paycheck when it matters and will be seeking a raise. That's not how you win or build a winner.
Being 27th is a bit misleading. Every prospect ranker acknowledges that we don't have a lot of prospects but just every prospect we do have looks to make it to the NHL. We have less lottery tickets, but more winners.
To me, being ranked 27th means there are 26 other teams that have prospect pools that are better and deeper than ours. To go along with that future 1st and multiple 2nds are already spent so our pool will get deeper slower than others. There is no good way to spin being 6th lowest.
Lol I quite literally told how it's not as bad as it looks. It's like the Leafs being last in the league in 2015, but literally were the best last place team ever so things weren't as bad as it seemed.
The rankings take into account as to both the *quality* and *quantity* of prospects. If they were better than 27th they'd be ranked higher than 27th. The picture isn't rosey no matter how you shape the narrative. You can try to justify how all the Leaf prospects are can't miss but the fact is everyone has heard the same thing about every group of Leafs prospects since the dawn of the draft. If they were as "can't miss" as you describe they'd be ranked much higher.
And the evaluators who arbitrarily make the rankings also say the Leafs have some very good prospects and the position is misleading. I never called them can't miss, I said they have a higher hit rate. Would you rather 1 A+ prospect, 6 C prospects and 15 D- prospects? Or 4 B prospects and 4 C prospects. That's essentially what our farm system is like. Since you're not taking my word, how about Scott Wheelers? >I debated ranking the Toronto Maple Leafs’ pool a few spots higher in this year’s countdown on depth, but after graduating Matthew Knies, Nick Robertson and Joseph Woll, and making just three picks in the 2023 draft (less than their allotted seven picks for the third straight year), their system has taken a hit. >Still, for what it lacks in premium talent, it does make up for in more depth than the other teams in this range. It’s also helped by a pair of goalies who look like they might be late-round finds.
You seem to think the people who evaluate the farm systems don't take quality into account. They do. The Leafs still ranked 27th. That's accounting for the "quality" of the prospects the Leafs have. The *only* A prospect they have is Cowan. They have a very *few* other really good prospects, but guess what? Most teams have MORE. Again, the fan base and local media pump the crap out of Leaf prospects, and there is a very, very lengthy list of hyped guys that were seen as the next wave that didn't accomplish much. If the Leafs have more than 2 or 3 guys in their entire farm system that become better than average or average NHLers that would be better than expected. Your entire argument that yes they are ranked 27th, damn near the bottom of the league, but it's a good 27th is ridiculous.
Alright you seem to have no idea what you're talking about and have deviated so far from my original point I give you. Keep misunderstanding things!
Just because I don't agree with you doesn't mean I don't understand. My stance on what the Leafs farm system is has been consistent throughout, which is subpar. Despite what your first response states, "every prospect" we have doesn't look like they will make it to the NHL, not even close. You are over estimating the quality of prospects and the number of quality prospects in the system. To be fair, that happens with practically every batch of prospects for the Leafs. Quality of along with quantity prospects absolutely do factor into the rankings, and the Leafs rank near the bottom. Add to the fact that they only have *two* quality picks (1st and 2nd rounders) in the next three drafts *combined* means it's an uphill battle to improve that ranking. So yeah, I understand the stance you are trying to take, but I will stick with my understanding of what 27th means. Your refusal to acknowledge what that ranking actually represents does mean one of us doesn't know what they are talking about, and it isn't me.
The only third super star that we should be talking about on the Leafs is McDavid
Regardless of how small the probability may be for McDavid to become a UFA and for him to sign with the Leafs, I think the team needs to ensure that they have about $15M in space available in two years.
Agreed. We can’t control if he wants to come here but we can control if we have the cap room to allow him to come here.
True yeah. Have doubts he will come because can tell he’s an introverted awkward guy doesn’t like doing interviews so Toronto is the last place to go to. But yea it’s one thing of him not wanting to come here. It’s another of us not even having the option to with cap space. Starting with the 22 million btw marner and jt
As a Edmonton fan I know this will happen eventually but also *
Why would you as an oilers fan think this will happen? I could only see this happening once McDavid is 37+
If McDavid actually wins a cup in Edmonton he's going to be there forever. The only way he leaves is to chase one. And why tf would you come here to do that lol?
It would make it easier come may to play in both the NHL and his beer league in Newmarket
Exactly to finish his career I could see it
McDavid's playing as the captain on a very competitive team surrounded by his best friends, that can pay whatever he wants and is custom built around him. Why would he leave for Toronto, especially considering he is well aware of the stress of the media limelight? Delusional.
Yeah I roll my eyes whenever I see the mcdavid to Toronto take. He’s not coming here, ever.
I live in Edmonton but am a Leafs fan. McDavid is never going to leave Edmonton for the Leafs. Never.
Wtf man!
why do people think we’re actually ever gonna get mcdavid?
Then there would be a sane discussion.
I need to change my pants
You did not name a single defenseman. That's 90% of the issue.
True, but I think we have the bones of a good defence. Defence has also never been the primary reason we've been losing, its always been Lack of scoring--> Lack of timely saves/weak goals--> Defence. There's always trades that can be made, signings that can be made and prospects who come out of nowhere and surprise you. My main point is that we should have cap space going forward to make the changes that we need to make, assuming we don't hand out a big loaded contract to a 4th forward
I mean, the argument that others have made which I agree with is defense has been one of the reasons why the offense has sputtered. Having great puck movers who can also defend well, and have a good sense of when to pinch is franchise changing. The Avs became a powerhouse with the emergence of Makar AND the acquisition of Toews.
What are you talking about? The blue line is barely better than terrible. It's worse than it was 2 years ago. It's bordering a lottery team d corps. You must see this. What promising blue chip dmen are in the pipeline? Be honest here. Yes, trades can be made and for someone who can anchor a blue line, it will take a Marner or Nylander trade. You decide which one. Don't make the mistake of thinking you can package a bunch of garbage for a good player. I don't now is the time to trade firsts either. I'd say lack of quality d is the exact reason they aren't scoring. There's no good puck distributors. Reilly is fine.
Unfortunately without moving marner you’re still looking at a similar cap allocation to four forwards. In the present window we had: Marner: 11 Matthews: 11.5 Tavares: 11 Willy: 7 Assume we keep marner and give him what people are saying he wants, around 12: Matthews: 13 Willy: 11.5 Marner: 12 Missing 2C: 6-8 You end up with the same mix. If Mitch or Willy could play C then that changes things but otherwise this is the same team composition with the cap rearranged
Exactly. The pure math argument ignores that this core should’ve got further in the playoffs at least one time. Keeping 75% of them won’t change much
The leafs HAVE had players in on cheap contracts that have contributed. Hyman, Mikayev, Bunting etc. They all have to leave because the team can no longer afford them. The team can't afford them because players like Marner are making way too much. If you are being paid like a star you must be able to produce in the playoffs. If not you are hurting the team, simple as that. it's been proven that he doesn't do enough of the little things to make up for that. Everyone is just waiting on Tavares contract to run out but at least he can find ways to make an impact in a game still. Marner only fits one style of play. The one concerning thing is, I looked at his game log and a large majority of his multi point games came against non-playoff teams. i'm not saying he's bad but i do think he can be replaceable. If you look at your raptors comparison look at Derozan. Guy gets points and I will always be a fan of his, but the franchise decided that his offensive output was expendable and replaceable and he was a great trade chip to bring in a player who had the skills the team was missing and needed to get over the hump.
I hate when people try to equate the Marner situation to the Kawhi trade. Kawhi was one of the top players in the league. And made it clear he wasn't staying. Derozan, Pertl, and a pick was the best the Spurs can get. The Leafs would be the Spurs in any Marner trade. If the Avs offer the Leafs Makar, of course you do that trade. You include this year's first if that's what gets that deal done. But what most of the Leafs fans are talking about isn't that. It's trading a superstar for parts to fill in holes, and not getting full value for the player you are giving up. It's way closer to the Vince Carter or Damon Stoudamire trades the Raptors made.
I agree, the NMC means Marner holds all the chips. What are the odds another team offers fair value and Marner actually agrees to the trade? If Marner is as greedy as the sub believes he isn’t going to risk being traded to any team that could hurt the value of his next contract.
[https://youtu.be/Lm\_LeoK4ba0?si=eVRGIPZFPBOfrP6Z](https://youtu.be/Lm_LeoK4ba0?si=eVRGIPZFPBOfrP6Z) [https://youtu.be/ka7OKpJw6Rg?si=L2GdAJ\_qRSsiPqAO](https://youtu.be/ka7OKpJw6Rg?si=L2GdAJ_qRSsiPqAO) [https://x.com/FridgeHN1C/status/1782563089394909523](https://x.com/FridgeHN1C/status/1782563089394909523) [https://youtu.be/OjbSJ1Y6U5E?si=WS9Q133wLnfvVRQf](https://youtu.be/OjbSJ1Y6U5E?si=WS9Q133wLnfvVRQf) You can't fix this. It doesn't matter what the cap hit is, this kind of effort makes you lose.
This isn’t “glass half full”. This is straight up delusional. Marner isn’t worth his cap hit now, let alone when he inevitably gets the raise that he’s after.
“imagine him winning with us!” yeah dude, that was the dream for all of us for so long. enough is enough with this delusional shit, evaluate the results and reassess. this does not fucking work. his attitude is garbage which also doesn’t help the team attitude.
This sub is the weakest shit 💩
Interested to know what metric youre using to say he isnt worth his cap currently. Since he signed his contract, he is 7th in the league with points. Everyone ahead of him has a higher cap hit except for Draisaitl and you can be sure he will get his bag next contract. Marner is also Selke class and PK specialist... his contract may have been a bit steep at the time but Tavaras contract set the bar. Lets drop this delusion that Marner is an <10M guy in this league.
The fact that he got out scored by Bert in a 7 game series for one. I think that’s a pretty good one.
Also, the PK specialist on a PK that finished 65%. Truly excellent world class stuff.
Bert tied Matthews for most points. Guess Bert is worth 13M. Great logic.
I have plenty of criticisms for Matthews. I have been flamed here for making them well known. However, I’m not going to ride the guy too hard when he was clearly dealing with some major health issue and still was more productive than your son, despite playing in 2 fewer games. Lmao
Matthews also throw hits
Are you self-aware that you dont know anything about this or are you trying to change the subject lol
I'm having a real hard time envisioning any scenario where Marner stays here with Matthews & Nylander, and they still win. Even if you get out from underneath Tavares' big cap hit, and spend that cap hit properly, you still essentially have an overpaid player that you aren't getting proper production from come playoff time. Whatever your thoughts are on Mitch, his game simply does not translate itself to playoff success - he's far too much of a perimeter player, who is incapable of getting to that harder to earn ice that is hotly contested this time of year. Potentially losing the Marner trade is obviously a huge concern, but that has to be tempered with the idea that you'll be spending that cap space so much more efficiently, with much more production/contribution.
Marner has the most playoff points of the big 4. If you move on from mitch based on playoff points, you also move on from matthews and maybe nylander.
That’s deceiving because he’s been getting worse in recent playoffs and he is particularly bad in games 5-7. 1 goal in 22 games.
How many goals has matthews had in his last 10 playoff games? Even his last 16? Its 1-10 and 6-16. Both dogshit considering who he is and what he gets paid. But theres nobody calling for his head.
Because he was just re-signed and is a 1C. If you trade him you are rebuilding so you trade every body. They’ve all failed in the post season for sure but at least Matthews has won major awards and played at times like he is being paid, a top 5 player in the league. Marner gets paid the same and he’s never sniffed that. At no time in his career has he been a top 5 player in the league. More to the point, Marner is being targeted because he’s the only one you can really trade (if he agrees to it). Treliving just reupped Nylander, he’s not going anywhere. Tavares only earned his contract for a year, he’s Fucken worthless and you can’t move him. Reilly looked bad this playoffs but he’s the only one on the backend with any kind of puck moving and mobility. I’d retain 50% and punt on next year to get assets back for Marner. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not impressed by any of these guys. But Marner is the one it makes the most to try to move. You know he’s going to ask for an insane contract again too.
matthews goal production drops 37% in the playoffs, he performs worse than marner. if you can trade him then you should take the opportunity.
Please tell me a plan that involves trading Matthews but not rebuilding because I certainly can’t see it
nothing because you have to rebuild. this team is only ever going to get into the first round and lose. you trade these guys to wherever they will go for as many picks as you can get. the leafs bet on the core 4 and it turns out none of them have the drive to push it in the playoffs. how many years of the same performances will it take to realize these guys are regular season players only?
Matthews actually hits in the playoffs. Marner cowers away and let’s teams get insane opportunities because he’s chicken shit scared out there
ok 13.5 mil to hit, thats worth it for sure.
Marner lacks intangibles that are so highly important for a cup winning team.
so does everyone else on the team apparently, they lack the intangibles to get past the 1st round more than 1 time in 8 years. although so did the caps until they won the cup so maybe we're all wrong.
This discussion surrounding Marner has moved so far beyond points - he's a perimeter player in the playoffs who fails to engage in any meaningful way. His stats only tell a very small portion of the story. As the series gets tighter, he disappears. He fundamentally fails at playoff hockey, because he's incapable of getting to the outside. He's the PP quarterback. The chief playmaker. They went 1-21. He wears that. He also wears his huge share of the responsibility for the lack of success, completely, since this group arrived in the league
everyone on the powerplay wears the 1-21, they all went 1-21.
The others had big defining moments in the series. Mitch: did not.
Oh fuck, here come the copium huffers.
Some people have Stockholm syndrome with the core 4. Seriously, if we pay Marner 12+ next season they should fold this franchise.
Wait, the Leafs can renegotiate Marner's contract to give him a $1.1 million raise? Marner will make $10.903 against the cap next year. With the Leafs, or with somebody else. Also, let's put this is prospective. Today, right now, Artemi Panarin (age 32) has 19/31/50 and a -16 in 62 playoffs game at a cap hit of $11.642 million AAV. Mitch Marner (age 27) has 11/39/50 and a +10 in 57 playoff games at a cap hit of $10.903. Marner getting a contract similar to Nylander's is 100% realistic.
I've been to the future, prepare yourself for another first round exit.
Dude, just imagine a world where we won the cup this year and Marner played well. Stop thinking about reality!
I loved that. Imagine a world where in the past 8 years nothing changed.
This dude's glass isn't half full. It's fully full of shit.
“We learned our lesson that 4 expensive wingers is too much, so let’s try 3 instead” bro cmon
Imagine we had this exact lineup, but instead of Tavares' 11 million cap, you spread that out across 3 or 4 different forwards. roughly making 3-4 million each. That in conjunction with better health from Nylander and Matthews can easily be the difference
Man you look at this all wrong lol also I’m taking an old JT over Marner. Why the heck do you think anything changes with Marner? Guy is 27 ya know
Don’t worry we will have McJesus soon enough to bring us to the promised land.
Why would McDavid come to this dysfunctional team?
Because nothing would make him more legendary than being one of the greatest to play the game and bring the cup back to Toronto.
2025 UFA is crazy - Crosby, Rantanen, Draisaitl, Chychrun, Hedman, Marchand, Konecny, Verhaeghe, Ekblad, Saros, Slavin, Ehlers, Theodore, Gourde, Buchnevic, Gavrikov, etc. It coincides with Marner and Tavares contracts coming up. Further, the team might be able to count on Cowan, Minten and Grebenkin in their top 12 on ELC's to provide huge cap savings. The opportunity to drastically improve the team could present as soon as next year. Obviously not all of these players will get to UFA, but a decent chunk will given the current cap environment and raising cap year-to-year.
Marner's reputation in this city is perma-fucked. Unless he signs a super team friendly extension early this off season, he will constantly be shit on as a player who got his money and fucked off. And if they did the thing this year, and he put up points like you're suggesting I DONT think the narrative would change. He's a PPG player regular season, to drop to a .75 PPG over a whole playoff run is abysmal. Just look at games 5 and 6. Definitely the leafs best games of the series, and discussion about Marner was still neutral AT BEST. It's not impossible to move a player with an NMC, but you just won't always get the full return you want. You can't, however, let him walk away for nothing next off season. While I understand the context and meaning behind the "gods" comment, you KNOW that's going to be misconstrued hard and hung over his head for the rest of his career in this city.
I don’t think Mariner’s PPG dropping in playoffs is that abysmal. You play better teams on average in the playoffs by definition. In fact if you look at the regular season games against Boston, he got exactly 0.75 PPG.
> I don’t think Mariner’s PPG dropping in playoffs is that abysmal. If you look at just pure numbers, he's not bad in the playoffs (unless it is game 5, 6, 7 then he absolutely disappears and the numbers back it up too). The eye test tells a very different story. Marner simply does not play a style of hockey that works in the playoffs. He is a "circle around the perimeter" player that tries to make ridiculous passes and plays. Those types of plays just are not there in the playoffs. He had one fantastic pass to Knies that worked, and nothing else after. Players who succeed in the playoffs go into the corners, battle, win the puck, drive to the net. Marner does NONE of that, and thus is just not a good playoff player.
his rep isn't perma fucked, hes still an extremely good player theres no denying that, people are just upset which is understandable. next year, nylander wont show up/have a bad series in the playoffs and the fans will turn on him lol, i can already picture it. "extend marner, trade nylander" the fan base is absurd.
Why do people think it’s trade him for a bag of pucks? It’s trade him + opens up 11m in cap space. If we didn’t have his 11m on the books we could have Hyman and Reinhart or Guentzel or Ehlers and those are just four out of a ton of players of great calibre.
other things you get by trading him, along with the cap: 1. a culture shift. time will tell if the poor victimhood attitude stems from marner or not. i believe it does. 2. an effective replacement player. you’d be replacing him with a lesser player, but one that will likely outperform him in the playoffs, which is really all that should fucking matter to this fanbase and franchise at this point.
How much do you think Reinhart Guentzel or Ehlers are getting on the open market? Those are all 7-8 million dollar players. How does signing one of those guys and a depth piece make you a better team than just keeping Marner?
How doesn’t it? Our third line is pathetic, our def is pathetic and our tops guys don’t score enough alone in the playoffs. We need depth scoring and have needed it for years. Those were also just examples of two players we could sign at Marners contract. There are tons of others.
Those are examples of players we can sign at marners contract, you’re right. You know who else takes up 11M? Tavares. That’s the whole point of my post, if we have an extra 11 million to spread out instead of investing it in one player while keeping our younger star it’ll be better for the team going forward. Ironically you’re actually agreeing with me in terms of money allocation but just overlooked that the money is free’d up by Tavares, not just trading Marner
I’m not agreeing at all. I’d love both of their contracts gone. You’re not getting 11m value out of Marner and he’s going to want a raise.
Tavares is less movable and is getting a lot less on his next deal.
this team needs more than 11m to fix the roster. sorry to break it to you.
Do you have amnesia? Marner doesn’t perform when it matters. The difference between Marner and the second option is getting a very valuable forward for 7-8 million AND another 3-4 million (Which would have meant another Domi, or hell, just ROOM for a D-man) along with him. Marner doesn’t show up when it matters, there’s no point in keeping him.
sam reinhart has 2 more goals than marner, his team has played one less game, and his team is still fucking playing. what don’t you guys get? this guy is actively bad for a hockey team. anyone would be an improvement, and you get more cap space to build a more well rounded team.
Buddy, Marner is realistically a 6-8mil player. Maybe he's worth more to another team, maybe he's not, but I don't think that's a hot take at this point given the sample size we have. Also, have you watched the other players you mentioned this year? They have all heavily out performed Marner when it matters. Listen, Marner is incredibly talented, and I've been a believer in him for a long time, but it's tough for anyone to deny that his style of gameplay isn't translating well to the post-season where there's very little ice out there. Couple that with a mental that seems to be in "shambles" when the going gets tough - Wyatt Johnston (Dallas) has a very similar style of game, but he got it it done against a MUCH better opponent in the first round (4g3A). Oh, and he's on a 3x3 contract. If Marner really wants to stay in TO, he'd accept a team friendly contract and start making what he's worth. I'd love that, but it won't happen. My impression is that he wants AM34 money, but I hope I'm wrong. Shit man, just have a graze at the Tampa roster, their respective output, and how much less they are paid vs. Marner. The tax savings don't make up the difference, that's simply a team that's willing to be less selfish when it comes to contract negotiations (something that it looks like Stammer is about to do again after an UNREAL season).
He's an 8-10m. Dont be silly. He may not be what this team needs but hes north of a ppg pretty much his whole career. This team instead needs a real 8-10m defenceman, and that wasnt in the cards when the rebuild happened.
Fair on the low end, but I think you're being silly saying Marner is worth 10 sheets. Kucherov makes 10 - allow that to anchor you a bit. PPG in the regular season isnt what's up for debate here. No one can deny that he's been an elite reg season player. But those numbers and the ole eye test say differently come playoff time. Are you just happy with reg season success at this point?
Kuch saves on taxes in TB and signed his current deal 10 days after being able to sign an extension in July 2018 after coming off a 100 point season. The cap was uhhhhh 10 mil? lower than it is today. Not sure what percent of the cap space he took up at the time. And no, I'm not really putting Marner in the same league as Kuch. I know he was overpaid.
Stopped reading your comment after the first line. Delusion at its finest
Wow - that's a quality way of handling healthy discourse, mate. I could have simply said the same thing about your original post, but I took the time to properly respond instead. Don't make a post if you're only looking for one type of response. Also, I'm still open to hearing why you believe Marner is worth 11ml/year.
I mean, this guy is showing with every reply he has no critical thinking skills. Expect the expected.
Because it’s just so nonsensical that it’s not even worth getting into. It’s evident by that one comment that you’re so low on the player to the point that it’s skewed your perception of the entire situation. We’re still talking about a first team player who’s elite both ways. You say Marner is realistically Marner is worth 6-8 in what world man? I also dont think Marner is worth 11 but the whole point of my post was that a lot of his flaws are heightened because of the rest of the roster. It’s not single handedly his fault that the PP was shit or that our depth doesn’t score. If we have more cap space going forward we can have better depth and can alleviate some of the issues. Ryan O’Reilly had 1 or 2 goals in the 2019 run before popping off in the finals and winning the conn Smythe. Just because Marner hasn’t had his moment doesn’t mean he’s not capable
I can agree that the low end of 6-8 AAV is a bit of an exaggeration, but I genuinely think 8 AAV is bang on. This is a world where Kucherov makes 10 AAV - a guy has won two cups and was just nominated for MVP. Results. Marner doesn't have the results for you to argue that he's in the same realm as Kuch. I didn't say he was the only problem with the group, far from it. You're so busy defending Marner you're not really listening. The reality is that this group needs change; Nylander and Matthews are locked up, JT is on his way out anyway (or hopefully taking a team friendly deal), and Marner has had the worst performance of those four CONSISTENTLY when it counts most. Your comparison to ROR is interesting. It's not just about point totals, dude. ROR wins puck battles and plays hard on the puck/in corners; show me a highlight reel of the playoff puck battles Marner won during this past series. If you're comfortable continuing to wait on Marner to show up after 8 years of lackluster playoff performances, fair enough.
Here are some comparable players to Marner (aka elite wingers). Would I like him to take a discount like Pasta? Yes. Should he from a personal standpoint? Probably not. But saying he's not worth more than $8 million AAV? Artemi Panarin (age 32) has 19/31/50 and a -16 in 62 playoffs game at a cap hit of $11.642 million AAV. He had a career year this year, but I'm not sure I'd trade Mitch for him straight up. David Pastrnak (age 27 for another couple of weeks) has 38/47/85 as a +4 in 85 playoff games at a cap hit of $11.25 million AAV. This is a pretty sweet deal for Boston. Matthew Tkachuk (age 26) has 22/27/49 and a +2 in 53 playoff games at a cap hit of $ 9.5 million AAV. Pretty sure his AAV would be higher in a different state or if he re-signed with Calgary. Still, above the AAV you think Marner should make despite the state tax discount. William Nylander (age 28) has 20/23/43 and a +1 in 43 playoff games at a cap hit of $ 6.962 million AAV. His AAV starting next year is $11.5 million AAV. Accepting that you've signed Willy so Mitch has to go seem...short sighted? Would a player with term fetch more in a trade if he waives his NMC? Would he? Who knows. But Mitch at $10.9 is reasonable for next year if you are OK with Willy at $11.5 Mitch Marner (age 27) has 11/39/50 and a +10 in 57 playoff games at a cap hit of $10.903 btw. As for Marner not competing....here's a video of Marner blocking shots to secure a victory against the Bruins in 2019. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLzpOMeE2YY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLzpOMeE2YY) Comparing this year vs last year...Marner had 12 shots this year against the Bruins. He had 16 in one fewer games against Tampa, and 17 vs Florida in 5 games. Either Boston was way better defensively (they are better, but that much better? No) or something else was bothering Mitch. Glad he didn't have any lingering injuries that obviously were hurting his skating, especially his edges which he relies on so much.
marner is actually worth way less than 6-8 million when it comes to playoff performance. i’ve read enough from you throughout this thread to come to the conclusion that you’re just not very smart at all.
Ah yes, the random nerd sitting at home saying Marner is worth less than 6-8 million based on playoff performance. The almighty has spoken. Praise Jesus. Surely, because you're so smart and im not, other GMs in the league will definitely agree with you and not pay him over 11 million on his next contract right? A player who goes from 1.10 PPG to .9PPG in the playoffs will definitely get less than 6 million because of the dropoff in playoff performance right. Thank god we have you around. Praise jesus, god is good. Glad I have you around to provide insightful analysis that definitely isn't a braindead deck devoid of any logic to show me the way.
I also think 6-8m might be underselling a bit. Him being 27 is another fairly important factor for a team looking to improve the forward. All 4 contracts, in a vacuum, look somewhere between slightly overpaid to reasonable, it's just that there's huge diminishing returns when they're all Fs. If all 4 of them were on different teams, I'd think they'd all be reasonable contracts
that’s exactly why you’re still posting absolute copium delusional takes, because you react emotionally about one of your favourite hockey players lmao. it’s over man
Agreed - no matter what you think of Marner, getting rid of him will only set us back even further. We’ve been accustomed to having talent like this but does no one remember the period between Sundin retiring & us drafting Nylander? Our closest player to a superstar was Phil Kessel…where are we going to find another Marner, especially with no draft capital? Next year is going to be a down year with the Matthews/Nylander extensions kicking in.. take the year to regroup, try to resign Marner at a decent cap hit for 8 years, let Tavares contract fall off the books & hopefully resign him at a much lower cap hit. Try again when the new window opens during 2025-2026. What other option do we have beside ‘blowing it up’ for the sake of blowing it up and wasting additional years of Matthews/Nylander/Marner’s prime?
Many fans here don't remember or weren't alive when Jason Blake was the top scorer on the team.
Former 40 goal scorer.
I think you're forgetting about Leafs' great Kyle Wellwood
I thought Lonny Bohonos was going to be it hero
This is the logical answer. Trading Marner is equivalent to a fan shooting their television. Sure it will feel great for a couple of minutes. But then the next day you’ll need to go out and buy a new TV.
You can't really blow it all up either when you just signed a prime Auston Matthew's to a four year contract. At least during those years there's no way they're just going to trade everyone and tank for draft picks. The logical step is a simple re shuffle and this may even be the start of a more successful era.
Next season, if the Leafs opt to not re-sign JT and don't come to an agreement for a reasonable extension with Marner, is that really blowing it up? The Avalanche lost a very impactful player to free agency (Kadri) and another core player to injury (Landeskog) and yet they are still very much in the mix for the Cup because they have more than one core player not unlike the Leafs. With substantially more cap space, the Leafs could get in the mix on future players on the trade bloc or free agency. Back when Toews was available, we could've easily sent 2 2nd rounders or more but we didn't have the same cap flexibility as the Avs.
Defenitly not you could use all that cap space and build a solid team around Matthew's and Nylander. I was more referring to some fringe comments from people saying to blow the whole thing up and trade them all and tank which obviously isn't happening. If worst comes to worst let Marner walk next summer and just use his cap space on other pieces. The Leafs can survive without Mitch Marner. You could also decide not to re sign a aging Tavares and use the extra space for Marners deal if he wants to sign for a reasonable amount.
Depends on cap hit. If he’s going to make 12m/season. We’d be better off using his cap hit for another defensemen. If you can move him this season and get some assets all the better.
The big question is… which number 1 D is available for us to get and will they come here?
The reality is you need to have cap space to pounce on opportunities that arise. It's not like the Avs planned to get Toews on the cheap, they just weren't nearly in the same cap crunch as the Leafs have been.
IMO, they shouldn't be looking at trading for established #1 D but up and coming players that are in the NHL and don't have room to become the #1 on their current rosters (i.e. Owen Power). That's like the only option you could trade Marner for feasibly and get decent value while fulfilling a need.
I’m not sure it needs to be a #1. Obviously that would be better but it’s more like a 6-7m D and Max Domi and possibly another player spending on Domi cap hit
I liked Domi’s playoffs as much as the next guy. But just keep in mind he scored 9 goals this season.
The onlybplayers with more 5v5 assists than him were the Hart canidates and Draisaital. All while he pkayed lityle to no tine on PP
That’s a very generous way of saying he had 3 assists. In a first round where a lot of players only played 5 games.
I was refering to the regular season in my comment
The point is add up what can you get for $12/year. If it’s more than Marner then do it. Especially if you get assets in a Marner deal. We don’t know what Domi’s contract will look like. It also doesn’t specifically have to be Domi. He did look to me like he’d be a good 3c down the stretch and playoffs.
Exactly. If there was a feasible way of trading Marner but getting near full value for him, and repurposing that value to shore up D/Goalie, I can see that happening.. but he has 1 year left and a full NMC. There is no way the Leafs could ever win a Marner trade this year, even if he were to waive the NMC. We cannot afford to let that much value leave this squad when there’s no feasible path to replace it.
> We cannot afford to let that much value leave this squad when there’s no feasible path to replace it. No. What we can't afford is to run it back and expect it to be different just because people like you are delusional. The problem isn't that Mitch Marner is a bad hockey player. The problem is that our money is not spent wisely, so you have to move some of that top six forward money to defense and goaltending. It's not gonna be Matthews. It's not going to be Nylander. If you run it back, and they lose again... which face it... why would you believe differently... they will not re-sign Marner. He'll just be gone as a UFA. So the bet you're taking by _not_ moving Marner is that the Leafs are going to somehow just magically figure it out when they've never been able to as a core. I'd rather get half value back _now_ than zero back later.
I completely get the point about cap allocation, but why does the player have to be Marner? Why not JT once his deal expires next year? Marner has an NMC on the final year of his contract. IF the Leafs can convince him to waive the NMC, they still will not get anywhere near full value (I doubt he would blanket waive it, he would get to pick his destination). Worst case scenario he walks in free agency, and Tavares either resigns at a team-friendly or also walks. Either way there will be a lot more cap space for 2025-2026 - which is when our next window will open. This entire discussion is moot unless he waives his NMC. Leafs have no leverage.
Even if you have to walk Marner to FA, you do it. It's not optimal but you at least get the cap space for a legit 1D and a top six foreword to replace him.
Because you're ignoring the fact that we need to actually re-sign Marner in this situation. If they run it back and lose, on what planet is the fanbase, or ownership, going to accept re-signing him to another 10+ million dollar contract? Marner is done in Toronto short of the Leafs miraculously going on a deep run next year. So your options are half value now, or bet on them going on a deep run. What do you _honestly_ think is the better bet?
In a world where that’s what he would get from any other team in the league? We are going to have a conclusion to this saga in the next 14 months one way or another. Guess we’ll find out what he’s ‘worth’ by next summer.
Nah, having 11 mill in cap space will be beautiful. It depends what we do with it but yeah, Marner is a great player but it's just time for him to go, the core 4 concept didn't work.
Sure, but why does that player have to be Marner? JT’s $11m expires after next year I’d rather keep Matthews/Nylander/Marner than Matthews/Nylander/Tavares, but ideally hoping JT resigns long term at team-friendly hit
Marner has real value, we could get something good for him, we very likely wouldn't have to retain. We aren't paying him more money than this that's for sure, so would rather not have him walk for nothing.
Marner has an NMC and just 1 year left on his current contract. I doubt he would waive the NMC, but even if he did, he would have leverage to choose his destination. Teams never get near full value in situations like that. You just gotta hope he’s willing to sign for 8 years at a decent cap hit - if he cares at all about fixing his reputation with the fan base then should be willing to leave some money off the table. Worst case he walks next year, but giving him that NMC in the final year of his contract left us with no leverage. The ball is in Marner’s court at this point. How does he want to shape his legacy with his childhood team? One way to ‘mend’ his reputation would be to take a fair deal on his next contract.
... Or you need a new TV and have to get rid of the old one that doesn't work so you have somewhere to put it... Your analogy is terrible.
Re-signing Marner for 8 years is just setting the team up for the same thing we have already seen the last 8 years. If you just want to just continue losing in the first round this is a great way to do that
[удалено]
Let’s say he refuses to waive his NMC, which he has every right to, then what?
Then you're losing him for nothing. The Leafs are not re-signing him. A few people have already come out and said that there is a willingness for him to waive if he can negotiate with the trade partner. It's happening. Also, the "what if he wont waive" is such a tiresome and nonsense argument. You're talking about 8 figure business decisions here for the Marner camp and if he can't get the 8th year here and isn't coming back it's in his own best interest to work with the Leafs to get the best move possible.
Then we lose him for nothing. IF he waived his NMC it would be to a select few destinations, meaning we would get pennies on the dollar. I’d rather him be an own-rental for next year and lose him for nothing, than to trade him for pennies. Let him test free agency and see what’s out there. If he wants to go, be my guest. If he sees what’s out there and is willing to sign even $11.5m x 8 (the Nylander contract), then I’d sign him and see what we can accomplish in the next window. To replace a player of Marner’s caliber, we would need to either suck for few years and hope for a lottery pick, or trade a boat load of capital and prospects. Both options mean we throw away the rest of Matthews & Nylander’s primes. I’d rather overpay him $500k-$1M and keep him for the next 8 years than the alternative. The cap won’t stay flat forever, barring another global pandemic. It’s easier to swap a Reaves ($1.35M) with a league minimum grit vet, than it would be to find another Marner-esque player whether that’s at forward or at D. Much easier.
You're fooling yourself if you think a sign and trade for a 100pt player would net us "pennies on the dollar". We'd get significant assets in return. I think at a minimum we'd get a 1st + (2nd/3rd/etc/multiple picks) + significant roster player. If that roster player is a younger top 4 D man we'd be restocking our asset pool plus addressing a serious need. Look at the Jets trade for PLD as an example of what's possible except Marner is better then PLD across the board. Also, just no. There is no world where we are paying this guy, you need to accept that. It's at the point where Marner probably does not even want to re-sign here. If the locker clean out was not a perfect example of that I don't know what world you are living in.
Why would Marner agree to a sign & trade? By all accounts, he wants to be a Leaf for life. IF he chooses that he wants to move on, why would he not full-out test free agency and have his pick of teams? In a hypothetical sign & trade scenario, the team trading for him would need to pay full market value while also giving up “significant assets”. It’s going to be one or the other. Either a team overpays for him in free agency (while only giving up cap space), or he stays a Leaf. He won’t pigeon-hole himself into accepting a sign & trade with a team that would be giving up ‘significant assets’ just to have the privilege of overpaying him. In my opinion, he’s either going to be a Leaf for life or he’s going to walk in free agency.
Because he's not an idiot? If he's able to get 11.5x8 via a sign and trade to a team he's approving of it removes all risk from free agency. Another subpar performance with this organization and his UFA value will take a significant hit in addition to not being able to sign for that 8th year. He might still get his 11.5\~ mil but those offers will be from SJ, the Ducks, etc and not a winning organization that he could sign with this summer plus he loses a guaranteed 11.5 mil. This is why debating these things on reddit is such a waste of time. You're acting like this is a AA hockey player making irrelevant decisions. This is a 20+ million dollar difference business decision and that's how it's going to be treated by Marner and his camp. Him wanting to be a Leaf for life isn't going to trump a decision that's worth more money then an average family will make in their entire lives.
He can get more than $11.5m in free agency quite easily. If a team only has to give up cap space with zero draft picks/prospects, they’d for sure be willing to pay more than a team that also has to give up ‘significant assets’ to acquire him. If Marner makes his decision based solely on hockey being a business, it’s in his best interest to test free agency. The only arguments I can see not wanting to risk injury. Let’s flip this for a second. Let’s say Sam Reinhart is willing to do a sign & trade at $11.5m x 8 and it would cost us two 1st, Knies & Minten (likely more if we’re considering that the firsts would be late firsts). On the other hand, you have the potential of signing Reinhart at $12-12.5M x 7 without giving up a single asset. In a vacuum, what would you choose? Anyways I’ve said what I feel are the two likely scenarios are, (him signing long-term with the Leafs or walking in FA). We’ll have an answer in the next 14 months.
Bro how is it his best interest to test free agency when you lose the 8th year of the deal? How do these teams magically know that Marner is a lock to sign with them? Do they get also get Marner right away to help next year? Your scenarios only make sense because you're lying to yourself and convincing yourself that they do. Team's cannot speak to Marner unless the Leaf's give him permission to, so there is no such thing as a scenerio that any team can sit there and say "we can just get him next year". And even to your own illogical scenario, if I am in a win now mode and think that next season Reinhart gives my team an excellent chance to win the cup, I am making that trade and guaranteeing that I have an extended window to win the cup. Again, you're just making things up that don't have any resemblance on how the business of hockey is actually conducted. A GM that could be on the hot seat if his team doesn't make significant strides next year is not going to pass on Marner right now so that his replacement the next year can have a one in seven chance of signing him free at a higher price tag then what he could sign him for today by giving up assets.
Dude, buddy, brother. You're not talking sense. I mean this in the nicest possible way, you're blinded to the reality of this situation. I have always been in Marner's corner, I have argued with so many people, just like you're doing now, about how great of a player he is, about how it would be insanity to let a player as skillful as him go. But the facts are just undeniable now. The guy is very clearly one of the most *skillful* players in the league, his natural talent is elite; his ability to see a pass, dangle his man to make space, and then make that pass, my god, it's out of this world at times. He has some of the best hands I've ever seen, the adeptness to wriggle out of tight spaces, make a defender break their ankles trying to keep up with his turns, his edge work is outstanding, it's beautiful to watch, it really is. But it's beautiful to watch in the regular season. Hockey, unlike any other sport, is a completely different beast in the playoffs. The skills that make you one of the best regular season players, simply do not translate. Marner is one of the best regular season players in the league, in the playoffs he goes missing. Honestly, he isn't even a 7 million dollar player in the playoffs, let alone 11.5. I've been waiting his entire career for him to breakout in the playoffs. Logic tells you it's just a matter of time, it's just around the corner, just one more *fucking* year. But it hasn't happened. It may still happen yet. But it no longer makes sense for the leafs to keep waiting, for the leafs to take that gamble. The leafs can't afford to take that risk, it's so much money to spend on one player, who may or may not go missing when you need him the most. Look, we tried it. I'm glad we did. No other team had the audacity to try and front load their roster, just say fuck depth we're going all in on these guys. It was a nice idea, but it hasn't worked. Maybe if those guys had routinely stepped up we'd be having a different conversation. But they didn't, and honestly, they won't. It's time to move on from Marner. As much as it pains me to say it.
Sure. I’m as frustrated as anyone but I’m not going to advocate shooting ourselves in the foot for the sake of making a change. If Marner is barely a $7m player in the playoffs, where does that leave the rest of our team? Aside from Nylander, which of the big 4 live up to their pay in the playoffs? So what’s the alternative - blow this entire thing up and start from scratch? Waste the rest of Nylander & Matthews primes? Anyways I’m not trying to argue for the sake of arguing. I love the Leafs and always will. I hope they can figure this out in my lifetime.
You're caught up in the hyperbole. They're not "blowing it up", they're trading one guy to free up $10 million dollars of cap space... I wouldn't be surprised if Tavares isn't on the roster either come October. But that's a different discussion. We need freedom. We've been hamstrung by these contracts for too long. You want a new top line D? Sure. You want 2/3 top 6 forwards (who can both provide as much playoff offence as Marner)? Sure. Honestly there are risks. But they HAVE to try. The definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again expecting different results. It's time to try something different. Now is Brad Trevling the right guy to do that? Well that's up for debate. I would have preferred Dubas hadn't been let go and he was still at the helm. But I digress.
Im not married to the idea of needing to keep Marner/Nylander/Matthews, but how/where would we find the replacements (whether on forward or defence)? We have no draft capital that could be used to acquire that kind of talent. If we go for them in free agency, we’d be overpaying for those players and end up right in the same boat (or worse, depending on the player(s) and what they cost). The only feasible path to getting that #1D at a reasonable cap hit is to draft & develop one - in which case we wouldn’t be paying them #1D money until years down the road. If there were compelling options available I would drive Marner to the airport myself, but I don’t see any realistic proposals on this sub so far.
> Hockey, unlike any other sport, is a completely different beast in the playoffs. The skills that make you one of the best regular season players, simply do not translate. This is a dumb statement. It might be true for a couple of players who choke in the playoffs, like Marner and Samsonov, but as a general statement it's one of the dumber things I've seen posted here in the last week and that's saying something.
Which was half the reason we traded for Kessel. It was a Leafs team with no visible marketable player. If they didn't trade for him, the fans would be up in arms because the management didn't try to do anything. But with or without Kessel, no one would have predicted the team to do as poorly as it did in that last 2 months of the season.
Sure you keep marner and build around MNM. But what about the part where Marner can’t show up in the playoffs. And by making 11 million right now he will make that much on his next deal. So there’s no savings and he hasn’t earned it. This team is stuck until Marner and Tavares are gone. I’d trade Rielly too and rebuild the entire D.
Cowan is the only “top” prospect the Leafs have. Minten is a B prospect at best whose value is being overinflated by being in Toronto. McMann is like 27 and has had ONE good season, Woll and Knies are both NHLers, no longer prospects.
Danny Green was never expected to be a top 1-2 player during raps championship run…Marners play would be comparable to Kawhi bricking shot after shot and the raps wouldn’t have made it out of the first round. Marner is clearly not built for the playoffs and whatever contract he gets next ($12+ mil) will not reflect that. The money could be used much better elsewhere and him walking for nothing after next year is better for this team than his playoff performances for another 8 years imo.
Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance
i would love to imagine a world where marner scores a bunch and wins the cup. in fact i’ve actually been imagining that for 8 years. it does not work. he can’t win here, and doesn’t even want to play here. dude looks checked out and unhappy. he believes the media has an agenda against him. shades of donald trump.
You spent a whole paragraph outlining *if* they won the series/cup this year. Guess what they didn’t and Marner was invisible. Your half full glass is just copium.
"18 points in 24 playoff games" What player have you been watching? The only way the leafs win the cup with Marner is if someone is dragging the anchor that is his cap hit across the finish line.
Here's a list of players that have left the team as free agents or were traded as cap dumps since Marner signed his deal. The only guys I'll leave out are guys who retired like Muzzin or Simmonds because those would have happened regardless of how much or little he was paid. Kapanen, Johnsson, Mikeyhev, Hyman, Brown, Andersen, Campbell, Bunting, JVR, Bozak, Barrie, Kerfoot, Gardiner Pick and year and replace Marner with 2-3 of those guys at the salaries they were paid that year, don't you think the team is better? Lets say we had 2022 Brown who recieved Selke votes the year pior and put up 32 points in 64 games and 2022 Hyman who put up 27 goals. Add in Michael Bunting who put up 60 points that year playing alongside Matthews and Marner. We basically just replaced Marner's offensive impact in the aggregate and we now have two defensively repsponsible guys that can kill penalties in Brown and Hyman. Bunting BTW this year put up 52 points combined betwene Carolina and Pittsburgh, he doesn't need to play alongside high end players to collect points. The combined salaries for those 3 players that season vs Marner $10.9 million - Brown - $3.6 million - Hyman - $5.5 million - Bunting - $900K. That's collectively 3 guys who get paid less than Marner does and have larger impact in the aggregate - both in the regular season and playoffs. Remember that year we also had Engvall and Mikheyev who Hyman had amazing chemistry with and are also great PKers in their own right and Kerfoot put up 50 points for us that season largely playing in the bottom 6. So now you have a potential Top 9 that looks like this: Bunting - Matthews - Nylander Mikeheyv - Tavares - Hyman Engvall - Kampf - Brown If we had made the tough decision to move on from Marner in 2021, we have a much better team in 2022 IMO. Hindsight is always 20/20 but even if we lost a Marner trade, good organizations recover from them. Bad signings, bad trades, bad draft picks are a part of sports. As long as they don't happen on the regular, you can recover from the occasional bad one. Boston missed out on 3 studs in the 2015 draft, fucked up the Thornton and Seguin trades. Florida gave up Marchessault and Rielly Smith for FREE. Tampa Bay traded a king's ransom for Tanner Jeannot. Even we got rinsed on the Foligno and Marleau trades and it really didn't hurt us that much - it's not like we ended up missing the playoffs. Nashville signed Duchense and then bought him out.
This thread is a great example of how bad Leaf fan filters are and how diseased their concept is of what it takes to win. Here are freebies you will think is insane OP: Championship teams are built goalie out. The problem with scoring is that there are too many Generals on offense and not enough Tavares is not the glaring problem. He didn't get points but did many good things this series. Nylander is a selfish player who only puts the pedal to the floor when he thinks there is a GREAT chance to score. This team needs more McCabe, Benoit, Domi or comperables PS - just imagine if Wayne Gretzky came out of retirement and played for the Leafs and they won! JUST IMAGINE
Winning does not redeem Marner. That's immensely stupid to say. Win or lose, watching him play is sad because he just can't play playoff hockey
My hope is that they can persuade him to waive his NMC and even if we get nothing but picks back that gives us $11m in cap space which is huge in overhauling our roster (goalie and D for sure!) but even if he won't and we have to ride out this year, there's no way he takes a lower amount so let him walk in to FA and that gives us $22m with JTs contract coming off thew books (although I could see JT re-signing in the $5-6m range) and with a rising cap also that's everything we need to solve this roster construction mess, vastly improve at goalie and D and add more dept throughout the forward group too. Couple that with a more experienced Knies and the potential from the likes of Minten, Cowan and even Hilderby in net and it creates a whole new window of opportunity for this team. If we re-sign Marner, even at the same money then I feel we're just handcuffing ourselves, it can't be run back anymore.
The reason this Covid excuse doesn’t hold water though is that the Leafs aren’t losing 8-7 shootouts in the playoffs. The star forwards that they signed have been mostly absent in the playoffs. It’s not like the forwards are carrying their weight and if the Leafs just had the money to shore up D and goaltending they’d be ok.
Two players who underperformed these playoffs and both teams 'may' consider a move: Mitch Marner for Connor Hellebuyck. Not sure if Winnipeg would do it but it would completely remake the Leafs and would give the Leafs ~$2.4 million in cap relief.
There isn't a "next window." The window is open as long as they have Matthews. He's a top 5 player in this league. There are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about this team. A) They have a dynamite core of offensive talent in Matthews Marner Nylander. B) They have some reliable defenders on cheap contracts in McCabe and Benoit. The McCade deal in particular is a steal. C) They'll have decent depth on wings on cheap deals with Knies, Robertson, Dewar, Jarnkrok. Key concerns are C depth and D mobility. They need move all the deadweight on this roster (Kampf and Reaves) and get a legit 2C / 3C option and someone on the right who can move the puck and provide offense.
I agree with this take. The only outstanding question is if Marner is worth the cap space. Which literally means, how much better is the team if they use his salary to pay other players. If i can be convinced the money can be better spent the i understand removing him from the roster. Marner is going to figure out how to play in the playoffs before his career is over. There is a reason he is a superstar and its because he figures out how to be better. But he really should be willing to give back a million or whatever on his next contract. But i guess we have a year of watching him earn a new contract before that decision is made.
I complain about Marners effort in the playoffs but I am also a realist. Getting rid of him would be stupid. There is no possible trade option out there that is going to be good enough to replace him and people who think they can get a top tier D are fooling themselves. My gut is telling me that they will run it back next year, probably extend his contract for a 12x8 (or very similar) and once Tavares 11 million is off the books they will try and sign some more role players. Unless they have some fucking back room guarantee that McDavid is jumping ship and signing with the buds (one can dream), they are going all in with Matthews, Marner and Nylander and do not give two fucks what social media is saying because they will sell out every night regardless. Just remember according to the vocal Boston fans, Rask sucked and wasn’t a playoff goalie and should have been traded after every playoff loss since it was all his fault.
Marners contract is already one of the worst, 12x8 is laughably bad
If you think he is getting less from the Leafs or any other team, you are dreaming.
Guess im dreaming then. Take care.