2025-26 Toronto Maple Leafs General Discussion

[OldTimeHockey]

2 more pages of Marner "discussions"? I thought we weren't talking about him anymore?

If we really want to discuss the difference between the team with Marner and the team without Marner..I would argue that it's 14 points. 68 team points vs 82 team points. That's all that matters at the end of the day.

 

[Bender]

But there’s no guarantee (as we’ve seen right now) that pivoting off one of the star forwards means a better team. It would mean a different team, but not necessarily better. And while they were overpaid relative to their peers, they consistently produced and I’d argue that the Leafs, at least during the Dubas years, consistently found productive value throughout the rest of the lineup. Plenty of teams had their stars for less cap hit, sure, but plenty of them overpaid other players throughout the lineup too. What’s the difference if your overpays happen to the stars or the rest of the lineup? Especially when the cap was flat, there was no guarantee that trading one of those guys makes the team better.

It had enough runway and was proven not good enough time and time again and instead we lost Marner for nothing when we could've recouped assets. That is hardly defensible.

If we're going down the guarantee road then death and taxes and all that.