CW ain't gonna budge. Marner was a victim. End.
Armchair GM Thread 2025/26
- Thread starter herman
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mr grieves
Well-known member
I think it was more than that.
There are a lot of media reports on how popular he was with his fellow Leafs. Many of them spoke out for him. McCabe spoke about how he organized things for the team socially - better than anyone he has ever seen before. Jake Muzzin, who works for the Leafs, Kyle Clifford and Matt Martin who took him under his wing are some of his closest friends. He's still tight with Frederik Andersen from his early years as a Leaf. He's vacationed with Zach Bogosian & Joe Thornton families. Domi and Rielly spoke highly of him. Matthews is touted as his best friend. He'd played with them for as many as 9 years. He's still in touch with Marleau - he spoke with him & Thornton during these playoffs. So his friendships with his fellow players are sincere and last. He wanted to see the season through to make sure he took another shot at the playoffs with his buddies. If he was doing in those 2025 playoffs what he is doing in these playoffs, I don't think he goes anywhere. That is what I think he was hoping for by hanging in. He could sign a shorter term deal for another shot or two with his buddies. I also think his buddies gave him a bunch of advice on what to do after the 2025 playoffs when the media, etc went south on him. I think it was important to him to not cut and run out on them before the 2025 playoffs - just like it was important to Sundin when they tried to trade him.
His Vegas teammates are speaking about him similarly. When the media tries to heap praise on him for this playoff run, he immediately deflects it to credit his teammates. Eichel has gone out of his way to speak at length to the media about how he feels Marner was mistreated. He relates to it from his experience in Buffalo. Marner was not conniving to find his way to a winner. He had unfinished business with his Leafs buddies. He hung in until he could not any longer. Got too crazy. I'll bet his former teammates will be sincerely very happy for him if he pulls this off.
mr grieves
Well-known member
“because Marner is always liked by his teammates, he didn’t want to go somewhere else to win” is the least plausible one you’ve come up with yet. We’ve gone from “don’t believe your lying eyes” to “here, let’s imagine Marner and his buds hanging out.”
Here, we agree. If he’d done this (ie led them on a deep run) in 2025, or 2024, or 2023, or 2022, or 2021… etc he’d still be a Leaf. He didn’t, though, because (as his new GM has observed) he wasn’t on a team with enough quality depth and (as we’ve observed) his new team is in a much less formidable division. That’s not all.
Marner’s not the only guy on the VGK who’s playing better than he ever has before. How much is that down to their bold move of canning their cup winning coach and replacing him with someone they judged would best unlock their guys’ potential in that moment? Can you even imagine the Leafs making a move like that?
Here, we agree. If he’d done this (ie led them on a deep run) in 2025, or 2024, or 2023, or 2022, or 2021… etc he’d still be a Leaf. He didn’t, though, because (as his new GM has observed) he wasn’t on a team with enough quality depth and (as we’ve observed) his new team is in a much less formidable division. That’s not all.
Marner’s not the only guy on the VGK who’s playing better than he ever has before. How much is that down to their bold move of canning their cup winning coach and replacing him with someone they judged would best unlock their guys’ potential in that moment? Can you even imagine the Leafs making a move like that?
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herman
Well-known member
It's a common refrain that the Leafs did not have enough depth in the playoff runs, because all their top dollars were clustered on 1.5 lines. Two coaches kept doing it! Not to absolve the GMs, but it's not the whole story to just say that unqualified.
It is known that Marner would throw conniptions behind the scenes if he was assigned to anything other than Matthews' wing, and then proceed to play so defensively they both scored at half their regular season rate, but had positive xG% from controlling the puck on the perimeter until a giveaway for a rush chance against woohoo. Please play them both a bajillion PK minutes on top of the top line and PP1 minutes so they can feel important more woohoos.
It is known that Marner would throw conniptions behind the scenes if he was assigned to anything other than Matthews' wing, and then proceed to play so defensively they both scored at half their regular season rate, but had positive xG% from controlling the puck on the perimeter until a giveaway for a rush chance against woohoo. Please play them both a bajillion PK minutes on top of the top line and PP1 minutes so they can feel important more woohoos.
Actions speak louder than words. He declined to provide any teams he would allow to be traded to until just before he was an UFA - when he could pick any destination he wanted. He enforced his NMC. He did not want to be anywhere else. If he wanted to go somewhere else to win, he would have provided the name of that team and allowed that trade long before then. Why hang around on a roster he couldn't win with (according to you)?
There was another bogus scheme floated in the media. That his departure was all about money. That he wanted to go to the highest bidder when he became a UFA (something his agent likes to do). Numbers like $14 mil/yr were floated if he went on the open market.
Future $14 million man Mitch Marner headlines first Top 50 UFAs of 2025
Future $14 million man Mitch Marner headlines first Top 50 UFAs of 2025
Competition for the Leafs on the open market and rising cap could earn Marner a monster pay day.
www.dailyfaceoff.com
That didn't happen either. Poor Marner bashers. On the open market, he could have got a lot more than he settled for.
That analysis is wrong. As I have already documented, there were several things that occured to improve VGK around the end of the regular season:
Their starting goalies were hurt since October (Cup winner Hill with chronic groin - never recovered his form - after his return from groin injury in January, he never played a game with save% gt .875). acquired Hart got healthy in early April (that was big - they finally had a starter whose save% could be > .900)
They added top 4 dman Andersson (to help replace Pietrangelo) & Dowd (to help replace Roy) at the deadline
They got 2nd line center Karlsson back, (who had been out for 6 months/missed 74 games), during the 2nd round of the playoffs - which moved Marner back from center to his natural RW position
Their roster was finally nearly completed in the third round of the playoffs when their injured captain Stone returned (missed a bunch in March and then 5 more in May playoffs) and was completed in the finals when injured 5th dman Lauzon returned (missed 10 playoff games).
And they replaced Cassidy with Tortorella
Even Tortorella will tell you their change in fortunes as a team was not due merely to the coaching change. If you listen to Tortorella, he's told the media that he doesn't say much to them because he has a good team that already knows how they have to play, doesn't panic, etc. They already know how to win (recent Cup winner) and don't require much from him. He points out their mistakes and tweaks. His coaching thing is basically to get out of the way, say as little as possible and let them play. I'm sure it helped but it wasn't the reason for everything that happened - far from it. When they got back to full health, the following had been added or returned:
starting goalie
top 4 dman
4th line center
2nd line center (moving Marner to RW)
Their captain
5th dman
that's six players = 31.5% of 19 on the ice
Trying to spin adding/returning those players had no impact and it was all Tortorella is utterly nuts.
The real impact of adding Marner did not fully happen until they got Karlsson back in the 2nd round and the Howsen-Karlsson-Marner line took off. They got a 2nd line and then when Stone came back, they got a 3rd line.
McCrimmon did a masterful job to salvage their season. Tortorella deserves some credit but for a bunch of it, he's along for the ride. McCrimmon would be my pick for GM of this season.
L K
Well-known member
I mean ultimately, part of the reason why Vegas the Leafs are in a different spot is because of Marner's contract. He played a hand in the cap strapped nature of the team. Ultimately that's on Dubas for signing the deals but when his agent was running around after Matthews deal it set a pretty clear tone. Marner at 9M is the difference between Hyman walking and staying....and the other big ticket players have the same responsibility.
mr grieves
Well-known member
When we reviewed all of these core 4 contracts as they went down, they were all pretty close to what the market said they should be.
Duba' plans did get burned with the Covid cap hit as we've discussed.
But in terms of the cap issue, you could say the same thing about Treliving re-signing Nylander.
One way player for $11.5M/yr vs 2 way player for $12M/yr.
To me, that is a no brainer. It is not even close.
They could have got their $ for helping depth by doing that. They could get some talent return for Nylander plus his cap $.
So to me, it is not all on Dubas either.
In my opinion, Treliving got rid of the wrong guy.
They guy they kept helped them wind up in 28th place.
Marner is showing in Vegas with a decent $5.9M 2nd line center and an up and coming late first rounder $2.5M winger and decent top 4 behind them, he can elevate and drive a potent 2nd line that plays well two ways against the best teams in the league.
We got a glimpse of that with McMann & Tavares (though Tavares is not the 2-way center Karlsson is)
Find a more economical 2 way right winger for Knies-Matthews and use the left over bucks to help the 3/4 lines.
I'm sure one could debate what is best to do but something like that was a credible option.
The above is just an example to show that the Leafs GM was not stuck with Marner's contract being the only way to solve that problem. The Leafs plummeting from 4th to 28th and seeing what we're seeing in Vegas ought to give one some pause that someone F'd up and it wasn't Marner.