Mitch Marner: what now?

[Guilt Trip]

Twitter's back. I'm going to assume it crashed because this guy called Wayne Gretzky a "below average shooter" while trying to argue how great Marner is:

https://twitter.com/dougjireland/status/1149334777436213253

Marner an above average shooter?? Yeah ok.

 

[Frank E]

I wouldn't call Gretzky a below average shooter but he wasn't a world beating goal scorer once goaltenders stopped smoking cigarettes and eating cheeseburgers between periods.

rolly eyes emoji.

 

[dappleganger]

I wouldn't call Gretzky a below average shooter but he wasn't a world beating goal scorer once goaltenders stopped smoking cigarettes and eating cheeseburgers between periods.

True, but he was still a better scorer than anybody else.

 

[Bates]

I would argue that the best of every generation would reproduce that in any generation. They are generally the smartest and hardest working and that would translate to each generation. IE: If Gretzky played when everyone physically trained all summer to get stronger and faster so would he and the results would be the same. What seems impossible is comparing generations while not considering advancements in pretty much everything.

 

[hockeyfan1]

What The Great One said about the Leafs Matthews & Marner in comparison to himself & Messier:

Circa 2018 (Reddit)

Not that we're the exact same kind of players, but in a lot of ways Marner and Matthews remind me a lot of how Mark Messier and I were together. One guy is a little bit faster, more physical, stronger, obviously, and the other guy was a little bit more of a hockey guy. And so, I see a lot of similarities between myself and Mark with Marner and Matthews. And listen, obviously I cheer for the Oilers. I work with them and I want us to win a Stanley cup. But, Toronto's a fun team to watch. They play hard, they play properly and Mitch Marner's fun to watch."

So, sign him, Dubas! 

 

[Kin]

True, but he was still a better scorer than anybody else.

Sure, but it's always been a topic I've wanted to dig deeper into. For 4-6 years he scored at a level unheard of in the sport, before or since. Then, while still in what should have been his athletic prime, he was scoring roughly as many goals as someone like Dino Ciccarelli.

It's tough to say it was just a reflection of the time either because this is roughly the time when Brett Hull and Mario Lemieux were having years where they were scoring goals at a rate that was pretty close to Gretzky in those 4-6 years where he was lighting the world on fire.

So did the game shift drastically or did it have something to do with the calibre of players coming into the league or did teams just sort of figure out what Gretzky was doing and were able to stop a lot of it? Anyways, it's just something that's always interested me.

 

[Arn]

]

So, sign him, Dubas!

I can?t believe he hadn?t thought of that 

 

[Highlander]

I think I speak for all here, "just sign the frikken contract Mitch", let us get on with our summer lives.  8)

 

[Joe S.]

I think I speak for all here, "just sign the frikken contract Mitch", let us get on with our summer lives.  8)

My summer is going along just fine and so should yours.

 

[princedpw]

True, but he was still a better scorer than anybody else.

Sure, but it's always been a topic I've wanted to dig deeper into. For 4-6 years he scored at a level unheard of in the sport, before or since. Then, while still in what should have been his athletic prime, he was scoring roughly as many goals as someone like Dino Ciccarelli.

It's tough to say it was just a reflection of the time either because this is roughly the time when Brett Hull and Mario Lemieux were having years where they were scoring goals at a rate that was pretty close to Gretzky in those 4-6 years where he was lighting the world on fire.

So did the game shift drastically or did it have something to do with the calibre of players coming into the league or did teams just sort of figure out what Gretzky was doing and were able to stop a lot of it? Anyways, it's just something that's always interested me.

Looking at his stats, he had a fair drop-off in shots from 85-86 to 86-87.  He still scored 62 goals in the latter year and had 183 points but it kind of looks like a significant decline in shots that appears to persist or decrease going forward.  (He only scored 52 goals in 85-86 but that looks likes shooting percentage blip.)  Maybe teams start universally selling out on him to prevent goals?  Which drop-off were you thinking of exactly?

After he is traded to LA, he?s getting a little older and his teammates are worse. He also had that back injury at a certain point.

 

[dappleganger]

True, but he was still a better scorer than anybody else.

Sure, but it's always been a topic I've wanted to dig deeper into. For 4-6 years he scored at a level unheard of in the sport, before or since. Then, while still in what should have been his athletic prime, he was scoring roughly as many goals as someone like Dino Ciccarelli.

It's tough to say it was just a reflection of the time either because this is roughly the time when Brett Hull and Mario Lemieux were having years where they were scoring goals at a rate that was pretty close to Gretzky in those 4-6 years where he was lighting the world on fire.

So did the game shift drastically or did it have something to do with the calibre of players coming into the league or did teams just sort of figure out what Gretzky was doing and were able to stop a lot of it? Anyways, it's just something that's always interested me.

What year did he get married? 

 

[Kin]

Looking at his stats, he had a fair drop-off in shots from 85-86 to 86-87.  He still scored 62 goals in the latter year and had 183 points but it kind of looks like a significant decline in shots that appears to persist or decrease going forward.  (He only scored 52 goals in 85-86 but that looks likes shooting percentage blip.)  Maybe teams start universally selling out on him to prevent goals?  Which drop-off were you thinking of exactly?

Yeah, that's it more or less. Like you say his shots declined but his shooting percentage also experienced a bit of a dip(as I imagine it maybe did league-wide during those years).

I appreciate that some of the usual dullards reflexively take this as a criticism of Gretzky but the more I look at it the more I think it speaks to his understanding of the game. As he became a less effective goal scorer for whatever reason he shifted his game away from it and areas where he was still top of the league brilliant.

 

[Hobbes]

Looking at his stats, he had a fair drop-off in shots from 85-86 to 86-87.  He still scored 62 goals in the latter year and had 183 points but it kind of looks like a significant decline in shots that appears to persist or decrease going forward.  (He only scored 52 goals in 85-86 but that looks likes shooting percentage blip.)  Maybe teams start universally selling out on him to prevent goals?  Which drop-off were you thinking of exactly?

Yeah, that's it more or less. Like you say his shots declined but his shooting percentage also experienced a bit of a dip(as I imagine it maybe did league-wide during those years).

I appreciate that some of the usual dullards reflexively take this as a criticism of Gretzky but the more I look at it the more I think it speaks to his understanding of the game. As he became a less effective goal scorer for whatever reason he shifted his game away from it and areas where he was still top of the league brilliant.

I am not sure how best to find out, but at a guess did he perhaps spend a lot more time with Tikkanen rather than Semenko on his other wing in that period? Perhaps that made it positionally a bit easier for goalies to guess where the puck was likely to come from, or a bit easier on the defencemen to shade to the Gretzky-Jurri side?

 

[Zee]

I don't remember much from the 80s, but I do remember that Gretzky was so ridiculously good in the early to mid 80s that he was actually banned from being selected in playoff hockey pools because it was deemed too much of an unfair advantage  ;D

 

[herman]

Alrighty let's fire out your contract guesses. You can do one short (<4) and one long (4+).

Bridge: 3 years 6.905 AAV
Term: 6 years 10.527 AAV

 

[Bates]

3 years at $8
6 years at $10.2

 

[Zee]

3 years $8M
6 years $10.516M

 

[Guru Tugginmypuddah]

3x$10M

 

[herman]

Isn't there a convention for adding ~1M AAV per year of term?

 

[Kin]

3 at 9.5
6 at 10.75