• For users coming over from tmlfans.ca your username will remain the same but you will need to use the password reset feature (check your spam folder) on the login page in order to set your password. If you encounter issues, email Rick couchmanrick@gmail.com

Marner to Vegas is finally happening

Folks can occupy themselves with side issues of not liking Marner's personality, not liking his agent's personality, not liking his father's personality, not liking the fact that he is wasn't acting the way you think somebody from Toronto should be acting, having a boycrush on a different player, the relative income tax structure of jurisdiction A vs B. That's all just fine.

It's all noise from off the ice, though.

On the ice, the bottom line is that Leafs just lost their best all-round player, one of the best they ever had, one of the best they will have in the foreseeable future, and will be replacing him with a motley collection of run-of-the-mill journeymen — a mess of pottage, if I may quote the Good Book. The Marchand dream was always just that, a pipe dream. There is no one coming to the rescue. No amount of lineup tweaking is going to make up for the loss.

The Leafs will be a worse team next year, and quite likely for the remainder of the Matthews era. Their chances of winning the Cup just went down. Harp all you want about the Core 4s failures to date, but talent wins championships. When you have it, you do everything to keep it. You keep trying to build on it. You don't let it slip through your fingers.

Could they win a Cup without Marner? Of course. But the already low odds are now lower.

This is, simply put, a hockey disaster. Maybe not the darkest day in Leafs history. Well, actually maybe it is.

PS: Almost forgot to add: and much less FUN to watch. That is not insignificant.
 
There is no question that I watch the Leafs differently today than I did 20 years ago. 20+ years since the Conference finals. Almost 60 years since the Cup Finals. 82 (soon to be 84) regular season games are a disproportionate amount of my time watching the Leafs. We don't have long stretches of deep playoff runs to say "the regular season doesn't matter". It does from a final objective approach but the reality is I still try to watch most regular season games because I like watching the Leafs. I like watching the Leafs win games. We have been fortunate as Leafs fans to watch 408 wins in the Mitch Marner era.

That doesn't erase the playoff futility but it does matter to me because I can watch those wins and feel good after them.

The Leafs are a worse team for losing Marner. Everyone plays a part in how it played out but as ZBBM says, the team has a harder time winning when you lose a star player. I think Nick Roy will be well liked but this was also a terrible year to have Marner walk with very little on the market to replace him with. Next year there is a much better free agency crop ****(Until a bunch of these players re-sign)
 
  • Like
Reactions: Arn
I think the fact that it's Marner who primarily wanted to leave is making this all a little bit easier for me. If he was 100% committed to staying and it was Treliving who made the call to let him walk I'd probably be spending the next several years, if not longer, constantly wondering if that was the right move. At this point though it was entirely out of the teams hands. Marner moved on, the team moved on, the fans will have to move on too.
 
ZBBM said:
Folks can occupy themselves with side issues of not liking Marner's personality, not liking his agent's personality, not liking his father's personality, not liking the fact that he is wasn't acting the way you think somebody from Toronto should be acting, having a boycrush on a different player, the relative income tax structure of jurisdiction A vs B. That's all just fine.

It's all noise from off the ice, though.

On the ice, the bottom line is that Leafs just lost their best all-round player, one of the best they ever had, one of the best they will have in the foreseeable future, and will be replacing him with a motley collection of run-of-the-mill journeymen — a mess of pottage, if I may quote the Good Book. The Marchand dream was always just that, a pipe dream. There is no one coming to the rescue. No amount of lineup tweaking is going to make up for the loss.

The Leafs will be a worse team next year, and quite likely for the remainder of the Matthews era. Their chances of winning the Cup just went down. Harp all you want about the Core 4s failures to date, but talent wins championships. When you have it, you do everything to keep it. You keep trying to build on it. You don't let it slip through your fingers.

Could they win a Cup without Marner? Of course. But the already low odds are now lower.

This is, simply put, a hockey disaster. Maybe not the darkest day in Leafs history. Well, actually maybe it is.

PS: Almost forgot to add: and much less FUN to watch. That is not insignificant.
Click to expand...

But Marner chose to leave, so are you saying that Marner caused a disaster by leaving the team (quite unceremoniously I might add) ?

Like I could read what you wrote as being a comment on Leafs management if they had traded the player for futures or something.
 
Yeah, and to add what ZBBM said, if they were able to trade Marner on the correct trade window, would give the leafs a ransom for that trade. And that would make them replace a 100+ and best defensive forward they had.
 
What I don’t get is if he always intended to go to Vegas, why did he block the 3 way trade? I know we’ll never know but I do find that a little puzzling, if it is true.
 
Joe S. said:
What I don’t get is if he always intended to go to Vegas, why did he block the 3 way trade? I know we’ll never know but I do find that a little puzzling, if it is true.
Click to expand...

I don't think we know if he blocked the 3-way trade with Vegas. What I heard reported was Carolina and Vegas couldn't decide what was going back to Carolina, with the Leafs getting Rantanen.
 
I do think, though, that the Leafs were offered Rantanen for Marner to Carolina straight up, and Marner Xed that one...once Vegas was involved as being the destination for Marner, he was good with that.
 
dappleganger said:
I don't think we know if he blocked the 3-way trade with Vegas. What I heard reported was Carolina and Vegas couldn't decide what was going back to Carolina, with the Leafs getting Rantanen.
Click to expand...
And credit to Treliving for basically trying to do everything he could to make a Marner deal like that work, especially after the initial Carolina one was blocked. What could have been if Vegas and Carolina agreed on something...
 
ZBBM said:
Folks can occupy themselves with side issues of not liking Marner's personality, not liking his agent's personality, not liking his father's personality, not liking the fact that he is wasn't acting the way you think somebody from Toronto should be acting, having a boycrush on a different player, the relative income tax structure of jurisdiction A vs B. That's all just fine.

It's all noise from off the ice, though.
Click to expand...

Talent out the door, yes; I have a different opinion on the level of utility being lost here, but still there is a loss nonetheless. To say it's the best Leaf player being lost for virtually nothing is a stretch, though; maybe you are more flexible than I am.

But I think this makes the Leafs a better team because of all that off-ice stuff is also walking out the door, and the reset opportunity to build a deeper lineup where more players have roles and feel important. Having one player taking up all those minutes is, while technically efficient albeit expensive, means less space and opportunity for anyone else to step up.

No more Marner negotiations to deal with is a huge win. Getting anything back at all, let alone someone that matches his playoff goal scoring output and defensive utility, is a win.
 
Marner is gone, and there's plenty of blame to go around for the way this went down (including the meager return). Overall talent in the group is obviously lower now, I don't see how anyone could argue against that. However, this could now be a better TEAM depending on how things play out, and all that talent only managed 2 playoff series wins in 9 years. How does Treliving fill out the roster, who else gets moved out, does everyone buy in to the system? Matthews...can he get past the injury issues and return to the goal scoring monster he has been? Or maybe he sulks because his buddy is gone and then follows him to Vegas when his contract runs out. That would be pretty close to home for him.

I have no idea how it plays out but given the age of the defensive group and the time left on AM's contract, they better figure it out in a hurry.
 
CarltonTheBear said:
And credit to Treliving for basically trying to do everything he could to make a Marner deal like that work, especially after the initial Carolina one was blocked. What could have been if Vegas and Carolina agreed on something...
Click to expand...

On the other hand, media have been saying (thinking of Jonas Siegel in particular) that Marner hasn’t seemed happy with the Leafs going back a couple of seasons so it’s odd to me there wasn’t more of an effort to try dealing him before the deadline.
 
herman said:
But I think this makes the Leafs a better team because of all that off-ice stuff is also walking out the door,

No more Marner negotiations to deal with is a huge win.
Click to expand...
Didn't realize you worked for the Leafs. I couldn't care less what goes on in the media or between the Leafs and any player and I don't understand why it has affected so many people.
The off ice stuff is such a reach.
 
Guilt Trip said:
Didn't realize you worked for the Leafs. I couldn't care less what goes on in the media or between the Leafs and any player and I don't understand why it has affected so many people.
The off ice stuff is such a reach.
Click to expand...
If I actually worked for the Leafs, we wouldn't be in this situation lol

The off ice stuff affects the on-ice product. Consider the brain space spent dealing with the Marner camp uses up; multiple really good Toronto players who wanted to commit here got boxed out (while Marner's camp publicly tries to vacuum up all the cap space), players answering questions about Marner (PR team to directing them to defend him for his sensitivies), other surefire contracts that had to wait for Marner, Marner, Marner.
 
Last edited:
herman said:
If I actually worked for the Leafs, we wouldn't be in this situation lol

The off ice stuff affects the on-ice product. Consider the brain space spent dealing with the Marner camp uses up; multiple really good Toronto players who wanted to commit here got boxed out (while Marner's camp publicly tries to vacuum up all the cap space), players answering questions about Marner (PR team to directing them to defend him for his sensitivies), other surefire contracts that had to wait for Marner, Marner, Marner.
Click to expand...

All the William Nylander clones would be 10 years old already.
 
GhostofPotvin29 said:
On the other hand, media have been saying (thinking of Jonas Siegel in particular) that Marner hasn’t seemed happy with the Leafs going back a couple of seasons so it’s odd to me there wasn’t more of an effort to try dealing him before the deadline.
Click to expand...
Maybe it goes back to Babcock throwing him under the bus as a rookie.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top