2025 Offseason Thread: Spring Cleaning

[cw]

I’m sorry, but if part of the reason Marner isn’t going to re-sign is that Tre didn’t come out and publicly announce getting that contract signed was a priority - despite reportedly attempting to engage in negotiations multiple times over the past year only to be rebuffed by Marner’s team - then he’s even softer and more of a prima donna than most of his harshest critics claim. That’s a me-first player. He can take that attitude and his poor performances in tighter playoff games elsewhere.

It is not whether Treliving announced it or not. It is whether it was a priority/important to Treliving or not. Good faith negotiations require two parties who want a deal to happen. Marner was keen and probably would have taken a hometown discount based on things he said in early May 2024.

Treliving was keen to re-sign Matthews and Nylander. But he wasn't the same for Marner. He effectively said as much - a bunch by what he didn't say or do. He waffled and was going to look at various alternatives and maybe a trade, etc.

When a deal didn't happen in the spring, when his GM didn't defend him much in the media and the trade rumours became rampant in the media, it became time for Marner to listen more to his agent. His GM wasn't doing much for him. That doesn't make Marner a me first player at all. The GM clearly showed that Marner wasn't at the top of their priority list - that they really wanted him. That led to "maybe I should look around at places who do really want me" Some of that negative press would devalue him. Some of it would put pressure on him to re-sign. In the wake of that, he turned around and put up a 102 pt season with an injured Matthews capping a Leafs career as their top regular season and playoff scorer.

Now, he is going to find out how badly the Leafs want him vs how badly other teams want him. After the way Treliving responded last summer, I can't blame him a bit for that. Respect is a two way street. Marner can play for any NHL team he wants to. It is just a question of geography, chances to win, term and dollars. That came around because of how Treliving responded to him last spring.

 

[mr grieves]

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not pro-management on this topic. They should’ve traded him earlier and only have themselves to blame for letting themselves be held hostage by this very predictable situation.

Yup. All of the NMC doomers from Spring 2023 saw this coming -- same core, same top-heavy roster, same results, and so Marner's gone for nothing. There are no magic words that Treliving couldn't said in Spring 2024 that would've changed the dynamics here and made Marner sign a team-friendly deal. Shanahan should've recognized the factors at play and trajectory we were on and made a move when he had a chance. It's on him for not figuring out the situation, not for players behaving in predictable ways within it.

 

[ZBBM]

What baffles me is this: Marner is flat-out a better player than Nylander. Even herman has admitted this, to his credit. And both of them have had the same overall impact on the Leafs playoff fortunes: which is to say, nothing when it counts the most.

Why, then, was it a priority to sign one and not the other? It's not like they are now expecting Nylander to expand his game and reach Marner's level (no sign of that happening).

So they are keeping the team's 3rd best player and letting the 2nd best go for nothing. Blame it on Shanahan, blame it on Treliving, even blame it on Dubas, but however you cut it, it's complete stupidity. It's a loss of talent that you can't replace, and the Leafs will pay the price for letting him walk.

 

[mr grieves]

It is not whether Treliving announced it or not. It is whether it was a priority/important to Treliving or not. Good faith negotiations require two parties who want a deal to happen. Marner was keen and probably would have taken a hometown discount based on things he said in early May 2024.

This beggars belief. Has a Farris client ever signed a contract once they were eligible to extend? I thought all his clients went to free agency to test the market.

 

[Bender]

This beggars belief. Has a Farris client ever signed a contract once they were eligible to extend? I thought all his clients went to free agency to test the market.

Seriously. Just the notion that there would be any discount by the forever butthurt camp is outrageous.

 

[mr grieves]

Seriously. Just the notion that there would be any discount by the forever butthurt camp is outrageous.

Marner may have been the only member of the core 4 who had trash thrown on his lawn, but I seriously doubt he was the only one to have a fan yell at him while out walking. It is true, though, that he was the only one about whom a story like that ended up in columns from insiders. Weird!

 

[herman]

What baffles me is this: Marner is flat-out a better player than Nylander. Even herman has admitted this, to his credit. And both of them have had the same overall impact on the Leafs playoff fortunes: which is to say, nothing when it counts the most.

Why, then, was it a priority to sign one and not the other? It's not like they are now expecting Nylander to expand his game and reach Marner's level (no sign of that happening).

So they are keeping the team's 3rd best player and letting the 2nd best go for nothing. Blame it on Shanahan, blame it on Treliving, even blame it on Dubas, but however you cut it, it's complete stupidity. It's a loss of talent that you can't replace, and the Leafs will pay the price for letting him walk.

I think Marner is very talented and extremely good at his game. I saw glimpses of something better under Berube’s directive during the season for fast creative attacking. But we also all saw what happens when the chips are down and the space is gone.

Unfortunately, Marner is very good at a game that is not relevant to what the Leafs are aiming to accomplish. Unfortunately, the timing of the managerial decision-making, the asking price of the player, and the lack of off-ice ability of the player to find fuel from the fame make this a pretty easy call.

Unfortunately for the Marner fans that are also Nylander haters, Willy is just better at the stuff the Leafs care about: rising to the occasion, generating direct offense, driving a line almost agnostic to who is on it, and embracing the pressure and the privilege of the Toronto fanbase.

People can moralize about the backchecking or the DZ stuff all they want, but at the end of the day, the combination of abilities to generate offense solo in this game at this highest level is the rarest of gifts, the hardest part of the game, and players that can do that elevates everyone else around them.

 

[Bullfrog]

Unfortunately, Marner is very good at a game that is not relevant to what the Leafs are aiming to accomplish. Unfortunately, the timing of the managerial decision-making, the asking price of the player, and the lack of off-ice ability of the player to find fuel from the fame make this a pretty easy call.

That is utter nonsense. His level of talent is relevant to any game of hockey, playoffs or otherwise.

The second part, I can support. i think he's a goner. I really wish he'd be re-signed though.

 

[Arn]

If Marner leaves the Leafs, Marner will win a cup before the Leafs do is my bet.

 

[cw]

This beggars belief. Has a Farris client ever signed a contract once they were eligible to extend? I thought all his clients went to free agency to test the market.

His RFAs haven't so not all. He doesn't have that many players (10 active contracts, 7 expired) and a bunch of them are not big contracts. I don't know if that occurred every time. A bunch of them are smaller deals - only 5 are greater than $4 mil/yr. Pretty small sample size.

I do know he wanted Marner to consider two offer sheets and some more offer sheets Ferris expected in 2019. He told the media that himself. Dubas was already aware of one of them. Marner wanted nothing to do with that. He wanted to be a Leaf. That kills the notion it is all about the highest bidder for Marner.

There was a lot of misinformation on that contract that got some fans down on him. Hindsight: as a top 10 NHL scorer, it was a pretty fair contract. Nearly everyone in his contract bracket was getting NMC/NTC for UFA years as has been previously established on this site. Agent did his job - got the player a fair deal in the city he wanted to play in and Marner put up the points and defensive play commensurate with his contract leading his team in scoring in the regular season and playoffs with some Selke votes during his time in Toronto.

 

[cw]

I think Marner is very talented and extremely good at his game. I saw glimpses of something better under Berube’s directive during the season for fast creative attacking. But we also all saw what happens when the chips are down and the space is gone.

Unfortunately, Marner is very good at a game that is not relevant to what the Leafs are aiming to accomplish. Unfortunately, the timing of the managerial decision-making, the asking price of the player, and the lack of off-ice ability of the player to find fuel from the fame make this a pretty easy call.

Unfortunately for the Marner fans that are also Nylander haters, Willy is just better at the stuff the Leafs care about: rising to the occasion, generating direct offense, driving a line almost agnostic to who is on it, and embracing the pressure and the privilege of the Toronto fanbase.

People can moralize about the backchecking or the DZ stuff all they want, but at the end of the day, the combination of abilities to generate offense solo in this game at this highest level is the rarest of gifts, the hardest part of the game, and players that can do that elevates everyone else around them.

Scotty Bowman sure didn't feel that way about Steve Yzerman when Scotty got to Detroit. The rest is history.

Nylander is a tougher case than Yzerman because Berube has learned that unlike Bowman-Yzerman, the coach can't say much to Nylander. I do not think Nylander has it between the ears for that kind of play or thinking. It is probably why he can't play center in the NHL. Center has defensive responsibilities within a system. That probably blows a gasket in Nylander's brain. It is beyond him.

Nylander is very gifted offensively but after that ... he's among the league leaders for lowest hits/60 and blocked shots/60. We tout Tanev on how great he is as a shot blocker or others for their hits and how valuable that is - making the team harder to play against - but we're supposed to say nothing about a $11.5 mil/yr hockey player with an aversion to bruising? 22 guys on the team have one set of rules for a system their coach asks them to play by and the Swedish enigma gets a pass.
That is the DNA I would look at changing.

Think Scotty Bowman would put up with that? I don't.

There have to be some sideways looks or eye rolling in that locker room. One rule for 22 guys and another special rule for the guy who doesn't like bruises. I respect his remarkable scoring ability but will never respect that part of him. Hockey games are highly contested. You grab an oar and help your team in whatever way you can - every second you are out there - in both ends of the ice. Nylander doesn't do that. Marner does.

 

[herman]

That is utter nonsense. His level of talent is relevant to any game of hockey, playoffs or otherwise.

The second part, I can support. i think he's a goner. I really wish he'd be re-signed though.

I said his game is not relevant to the Leaf's goals; his talent is great. Marner's game matched what Dubas and Keefe tried to do, but in high pressure, playoff situations, Marner is defaulting to a playstyle that doesn't work for this current team and the playoff game in general (especially not at the cap hit he wants).

 

[mr grieves]

If Marner leaves the Leafs, Marner will win a cup before the Leafs do is my bet.

My prediction: not if he signs for $13m. The next team that signs him will be limited in the same way the Leafs have been and will be paying playoff game-breaking money to a player who doesn’t break playoff games.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

Why, then, was it a priority to sign one and not the other?

Who's saying re-signing Marner wasn't a priority for the Leafs? It was Marner, or at least his representatives, who were rebuffing contract negotiations by all accounts. From the sound of it in a perfect world the Leafs would have been perfectly happy signing him to a deal larger than Nylander's around the same time of season Willy finalized his contract last year. We have to accept this is a 2-way street.

If Marner walks for nothing it's because he doesn't want to spend the rest of his career as a Leaf.

 

[herman]

You can take it with a grain of salt or whatever, but Adam Wylde was told the following

18:07

Adam: What they did -- and again this is multiple people have told me this -- they sat down with management [...] and [Marner's representation] said at the beginning of the season: "Brad, here's how this is gonna go. Mitch is going to July 1st. He will not negotiate with you in season. He will not accept a trade. He's going to test the market July 1st."

 

[dappleganger]

I said his game is not relevant to the Leaf's goals; his talent is great. Marner's game matched what Dubas and Keefe tried to do, but in high pressure, playoff situations, Marner is defaulting to a playstyle that doesn't work for this current team and the playoff game in general (especially not at the cap hit he wants).

I actually think it's not his play style that doesn't work in the playoffs. Marner is way tougher and plays a harder game than he gets credit for. The problem with Marner is the problem with all of the Leafs best players, they shrink in the playoffs. They don't play their usual game. They all do it. I think it's misleading to say Marner's game doesn't translate to the playoffs when all the core 4 have underperformed in the playoffs, despite of some momentary successes.

Matthews with 3 goals in 13 games is way more inexcusable than what Marner produced. Nylander had 0 points in the last 4 games of the Panthers series. Tavares had 0 points in the last 4 games of the Panthers series (and was a -3 in game 7). The core 4 are all defaulting to a play style (it's called choking) that doesn't work for the current team and the playoff game in general, if you want to put it that way.

That being said, I do think Marner is the most easily replaceable (*easier, not easy) player out of the 4 that you could move away from and augment the roster in other ways. I'll say the Leafs didn't have a productive 3rd line in the playoffs (2 - 4th lines?) and moving out his $10.9m and bringing in two $6m players that could play down the lineup would probably be a better use of resources.

 

[L K]

Nylander's case is a lot stronger when he's scoring goals in the final games of the series. His game is not about sound defense or diving into the corners so yeah, I'm especially frustrated with his game in the Florida series because when his scoring stopped, his on ice performance stops.

When Marner stops scoring later in series he still does a lot of really good things on the ice. It's just not worth 11+ million if he can't also find a way to convert things into offense. Same concern with Matthews.
'
I'm going to hard disagree on the white washing of making Marner a saint in everything who was just treated horrifically by the organization. He got paid 67+ million bucks over 9 years to play hockey in Toronto. The Leafs got good production out of him over that contract. Anything about contract offers, extensions or trade requests is all conjecture and I don't see the value in taking everything positive about Marner at face value or taking all the negative at face value either.

I don't know what the franchise is really supposed to do about lunatics harassing players. You can send out a press release telling them to not be terrible people but the problem with people like that is they would probably just be even worse about it.

Losing Marner for nothing though is going to set this franchise back a lot. I

 

[herman]

I actually think it's not his play style that doesn't work in the playoffs. Marner is way tougher and plays a harder game than he gets credit for. The problem with Marner is the problem with all of the Leafs best players, they shrink in the playoffs. They don't play their usual game. They all do it. I think it's misleading to say Marner's game doesn't translate to the playoffs when all the core 4 have underperformed in the playoffs, despite of some momentary successes.

Matthews with 3 goals in 13 games is way more inexcusable than what Marner produced. Nylander had 0 points in the last 4 games of the Panthers series. Tavares had 0 points in the last 4 games of the Panthers series (and was a -3 in game 7). The core 4 are all defaulting to a play style (it's called choking) that doesn't work for the current team and the playoff game in general, if you want to put it that way.

Mitch is tougher than he looks, for sure. He can and does take hits to make a play. Blocks shots, chases down pucks, whatever. His playstyle issue is he doesn't take those skills to the middle slot to generate ugly chaos puck. He's looking for homerun passes. And with how often he has the puck, it's small wonder Matthews suffers a power outage every playoff when the puck is trapped on the perimeter (or turned over at the blueline) while he is double teamed.

Nylander had 0 pts in the final 4 games because Paul Maurice saw the damage Willy already did and changed the whole game plan and put all his top defense pair and Barkov against him, Tavares, and Pacioretty/Holmberg. The Leafs first line did nothing against the other matchups they received, except for Mitch jumping on that Forsling turnover in game 6.

There's no depth because all the good depth didn't have cap room.

 

[dappleganger]

Nylander had 0 pts in the final 4 games because Paul Maurice saw the damage Willy already did and changed the whole game plan and put all his top defense pair and Barkov against him, Tavares, and Pacioretty/Holmberg. The Leafs first line did nothing against the other matchups they received, except for Mitch jumping on that Forsling turnover in game 6.

Mitch was able to produce points when Maurice put his top defense pair and Barkov against him in games 1 and 2. (I believe the switch was made in game 3). The deployment of opponents did not prohibit Nylander and Tavares from producing whether it was more difficult or not. They still had power play opportunities.

All 4 of the Leafs core 4 shrank. None of them played up to their abilities.

 

[Arn]

My prediction: not if he signs for $13m. The next team that signs him will be limited in the same way the Leafs have been and will be paying playoff game-breaking money to a player who doesn’t break playoff games.

That’s possibly a fair push back. I haven’t looked in detail at cap space, but 3 of the “favourites” for spots for him to land I’ve seen floated are Carolina, LA and Vegas.

Going by Puckpedia Carolina have $28m and 3 roster spots to fill, LA $22m and 2 spots to fill. I could see them pay him and him make a difference to those teams.

Vegas has $10m but 5 spots to fill, but they always manage to do something to shed cap so who knows.

I wonder if Boston would be willing to go for him? $26m but 9 spots to fill so yeah he’s unlikely to get $13m there.

If he signs for any of those first three especially I’d say he’s more likely to win a cup before Toronto.