All Purpose Mitch Marner Talk

[Stephen]

That's Kane at his best, and that is basically an exact description of age 21 Marner, which is very unlikely to be his best.

Patrick Kane was also a Stanley Cup winner at 21. Have some humility man.

 

[Antropovsky]

Thi

This kid has excelled his entire life being under pressure.

he’s also always played on a stacked line.....without facing any adversity really. in the knights title year... he was on a knights line that literally could have stepped into the NHL that same year and been a very good NHL third line.

 

[Cleetus]

He doesn't outproduce. Reading is a skill. He sucks on the PK. And Matthews is out end game.
Matthews is by FAR the better player. Ignoring reality doesn't make you right.

you really cant argue this, and I think Mitch is a heck of a player, but Matthews is the Franchise....

 

[SlpLessInMuskoka18]

he’s also always played on a stacked line.....without facing any adversity really. in the knights title year... he was on a knights line that literally could have stepped into the NHL that same year and been a very good NHL third line.

Yeah I owned the ohl package back then with Mcdavid that whole draft class was nuts.

Id push so hard for thchuk lol with matty and mitchy would be nasty trio

 

[Stephen]

He doesn't outproduce. Reading is a skill. He sucks on the PK. And Matthews is out end game.
Matthews is by FAR the better player. Ignoring reality doesn't make you right.

I always thought Marner on the PK must have started as some kind of Mike Babcock Full Metal Jacket drill sergeant schtick that never went away. Sure, he's made a few stick checks and even generated the odd short handed goal, but he's not that good on the PK, and now that he's an $11 million player, why do we want him out there to absorb shots and get worn down?

 

[kk87]

Laid out like this I don't like the trend over the last three seasons at all for him in the playoffs. Dominant all series to dominant for roughly half of one to not being much of a factor at all in his most recent one. He needs to return to the dominant form he once had in the playoffs. Can't be all on Matthews and Tavares.

Definitely a fair assessment, but that downward trend you're referring to occurred over fewer than 10 games. I agree that playoff games are categorically more important and should be treated as such, but it's still a very small sample size - especially considering the play-in series this year needs to be evaluated differently given the circumstances.

At the end of the day, I'm not disagreeing that Mitch needs to be better and more consistent in the playoffs, specifically given his cap hit. But the notion that we should trade him because of how he's played in the playoffs, when that assessment is based around a >10 game sample size, seems ludicrous to me. Give him a full season under Keefe to round out his game and find that next gear, and he's going to be even more of a force than he already is.

 

[Superstar]

He doesn't outproduce. Reading is a skill. He sucks on the PK. And Matthews is out end game.
Matthews is by FAR the better player. Ignoring reality doesn't make you right.

But some folks will tell you that Marner could also play centre though...

 

[AcerComputer]

Patrick Kane was also a Stanley Cup winner at 21. Have some humility man.

Argument makes no sense. You can be a great player but on a bad team, just ask McDavid. And you can be a bad player on a good team, just ask Luke Schenn who recently won the cup.

 

[Gabriel426]

But some folks will tell you that Marner could also play centre though...

Marner can do everything. He is so much more than a RW.
He will probably find the cure of COVID before anyone.

 

[Notsince67]

Patrick Kane was also a Stanley Cup winner at 21. Have some humility man.

Kane had a point a game his first RFA year and dropped to 66 points for a full season in rfa2 year. Perhaps your analysis could use a bit of humility. Kane could not have won a cup for Toronto if he were on the team instead of Marner. This is just silly.

 

[Notsince67]

I always thought Marner on the PK must have started as some kind of Mike Babcock Full Metal Jacket drill sergeant schtick that never went away. Sure, he's made a few stick checks and even generated the odd short handed goal, but he's not that good on the PK, and now that he's an $11 million player, why do we want him out there to absorb shots and get worn down?

Because he doesnt get tired as per Keefe. His possession on the PK in the playoffs were better than Nylanders totals. Yet you need to make this point and cut the kid to pieces.

 

[Notsince67]

But some folks will tell you that Marner could also play centre though...

Some folks still say Nylander can play center.

 

[Dekes For Days]

Patrick Kane was also a Stanley Cup winner at 21.

A team accomplishment... on one of the most stacked teams in the cap era. Kane did well that year, but that was also his only playoffs above P/GP prior to age 25, and he faced all worse defensive teams than Marner has faced the past 3 years.

Also not sure what that has to do with the description of how he plays.

 

[Dekes For Days]

That's why I respect Stevie Y...when he had that problem down in Tampa with Drouin

Drouin was half the player Marner/Nylander was, Drouin didn't like it in Tampa, Tampa had emerging players to replace him, and he needed to be traded for the expansion draft anyway. That is not a comparable situation.

he’s also always played on a stacked line...

That is false. Marner has been the best player on every line he's played on until halfway through this year with Matthews.

 

[LeafGrief]

I'm less mad at Marner now that some time is between us and the season+play-in. My goodness he was disappointing this year, but I fully recognize that calling a 90 point winger a "disappointment" is based on my expectation that he be a legitimate Art Ross threat. That contract and how it was handled (by both management and the player) makes me want to barf, but at the end of the day I'm very happy to have Marner on the team.

I still think that this year was a direct result of how poisonous the contract situation was. It seemed like he was in a fog all year and the happy kid just disappeared overnight to be replaced by a sullen husk. You could see the lack of enthusiasm, the bitterness, and the shame in his game a lot of nights. I was really hoping that the long break between the season and the play-in would give him some time to get his head right, but I don't think it really did. Hopefully he gets to a sports psychologist this offseason or something because we need that happy kid back. The happy kid is an elite play driver and that's what we're paying 11 million bucks for.

 

[Stephen]

Kane had a point a game his first RFA year and dropped to 66 points for a full season in rfa2 year. Perhaps your analysis could use a bit of humility. Kane could not have won a cup for Toronto if he were on the team instead of Marner. This is just silly.

So Marner's one 94 point season and general points pace somehow puts him into the stratosphere of Patrick Kane, who has to 3x Stanley Cups, a Calder Trophy, an Art Ross Trophy, a Hart Trophy and a Lindsay Trophy, 2x 40 goal seasons and 2x 100 point seasons, all achieved before the age of 31.

 

[Stephen]

A team accomplishment... on one of the most stacked teams in the cap era. Kane did well that year, but that was also his only playoffs above P/GP prior to age 25, and he faced all worse defensive teams than Marner has faced the past 3 years.

Also not sure what that has to do with the description of how he plays.

Marner doesn't play like Patrick Kane. That's typically a generic style description that gets attached to scoring wingers at the draft before anyone's watched them for significant amounts of time. They are not stylistically all that similar.

 

[EGL22]

A lot of Marner ripping about playoffs but I remember last season after the first Leaf win the Boston coach in an interview after the game saying they need to shut down Marner,he was the engine to the team.

From that point forward the top pair D and forwards were all over him every inch of play and he got whacked and hacked every chance even when he did not have the puck.

Bigfoot himself Chara gave out cheapshots by the barrel full and I think Marner must have been covered in welts and bruises just from that.

After that they did the same to Matthews and once those 2 were basically blanketed nothing came from Tavares and especially Nylander.

I don't blame Marner or Matthews for playoff failures but much more Tavares,Nylander and whatever D we have had.

I also don't put a hate on Marner just because he makes way too much money,that one falls on Dubas.

 

[Dekes For Days]

Marner doesn't play like Patrick Kane.

The description you had of Kane was a perfect description of 2018-2019 Marner. You're underselling Marner and overrating Kane, especially at similar ages.

 

[Notsince67]

So Marner's one 94 point season and general points pace somehow puts him into the stratosphere of Patrick Kane, who has to 3x Stanley Cups, a Calder Trophy, an Art Ross Trophy, a Hart Trophy and a Lindsay Trophy, 2x 40 goal seasons and 2x 100 point seasons, all achieved before the age of 31.

Marner has maintained an over 90 point scoring rate (for 82 game periods) since December 2018 (when he was still 21).
Kane first achieved this at age 27.

 

[Stephen]

Marner has maintained an over 90 point scoring rate (for 82 game periods) since December 2018 (when he was still 21).
Kane first achieved this at age 27.

If you recall earlier in Kane’s career, what made him and Toews and the Blackhawks special is they won the Stanley Cup multiple and as young players they had an uncanny ability to slay any dragon in the playoffs, whether that was Detroit, Vancouver who was coming into contention at the same time, or Los Angeles who was also winning cups.

Now you might turn around and say “team accomplishment!” But to tell you quite bluntly, I don’t really put that much emphasis on Marner’s point pace or production because it’s never been linked to Toronto having a ton of team success. If anything it does back to the contract and how the team had to pay through the nose for his numbers.

 

[Stephen]

The description you had of Kane was a perfect description of 2018-2019 Marner. You're underselling Marner and overrating Kane, especially at similar ages.

It might be useful to just watch some YouTube tape of Patrick Kane and to look at how he actually plays in comparison to Marner. Even if you just want to focus on stylistic play they are not that similar.

 

[A1LeafNation]

Kane can shoot, is Marner working in his muffin of a shot with his 11m per?

 

[Dekes For Days]

It might be useful to just watch some YouTube tape of Patrick Kane and to look at how he actually plays in comparison to Marner. Even if you just want to focus on stylistic play they are not that similar.

I've watched quite a bit of Kane. I also watched quite a bit of Kane when he was Marner's age, and it wasn't the same, and it was more inconsistent. Part of the issue you might be having by watching YouTube tape is that those are most often those players in their best moments. Seems rather inconsistent to compare best moments for one player, to the more mediocre moments of another player during their relatively down, injury-filled season.

Stylistically, these players are not exact copies (nobody is), but there are many aspects to them that are similar, as evidenced by the description you gave, which could have been a word for word description of Marner's 2018-2019 season.

 

[Dekes For Days]

I don’t really put that much emphasis on Marner’s point pace or production because it’s never been linked to Toronto having a ton of team success.

Did you miss the part where we instantly went from worst team in the league to perennial playoff team that can take league powerhouses to the limit in the playoffs?