Mitch Marner: Playing Well and on the Verge of Being Elite

Sometimes hockey is beset by really, really bad narratives. Mitch Marner is exhibit A.

You can’t blame anyone for this problem – it’s always going to happen. Before the internet, there was a dedicated cabal of hockey writers who decided what was what. If they were wrong, it didn’t matter because their word was law.

Post-Internet, we have the mainstreamers, the bloggers and the tweeters. There is so much content that no matter what the narrative, there is a nice juicy counter-narrative to get behind. But this landscape is difficult to navigate and it’s hard, at any given time, to know what the main narrative is. What’s resonating in the world of instant analysis and constant breaking news?

Who the hell knows?

But one thing is definitely at the forefront of Leafs Nation right now, and that’s Mitch Marner. The coach demoted him to the fourth line. Prior to playing 18 minutes in Monday’s game against Vegas, he had only played more than 15 minutes three times in 11 games.

Additionally, his on-ice save percentage is under 87%, meaning he’s had incredible bad luck and the goalie has done horribly while Marner has been on the ice, contributing to his Minus 8 rating, which looks bad but is meaningless. Add in the single goal in 17 games and you have a “Marner is playing poorly” narrative.

It Gets Worse

Combine that with the Leafs excess of forwards and lack of quality defensemen, and you get a “Marner is playing bad and we should trade him for a defenseman” narrative.

This is an extremely stupid line of thought. Discounting Matthews and Nylander, how many Marner-quality forwards have the Leafs been able to draft in the last 30 years? If you said ZERO you are correct.

So they can’t make the mistake of thinking something isn’t extremely rare just because they have more than one of it at a time. Marner is untouchable. And if you still think he should be traded, just google the following phrase: Taylor Hall Trade.

Marner Playing Well

You can say this a million times, but people just won’t buy it: Goals are random. Doesn’t matter if you agree or not, it’s true. The goal is a terrible way to evaluate a player because whether or not a player deserves a goal has very little to do with whether or not he gets one.

This is why it’s better to evaluate players on a shot-attempts, shooting-percentage, shots and scoring chances (in addition to goals). If you do this, you can see if a player is playing well and then you can guess with a high degree of probability if he’ll start scoring more goals or not.

In 17 games, Marner has 1 goal, 7 assists, and is a – 8. Plus, he’s been demoted to the fourth line.

This stat line screams sophomore Slump, but the peripheral numbers suggest a snake-bitten player whose nevertheless been very effective.

Mitch Marner’s 54% CF rating leads the Toronto Maple Leafs. Whenever Marner is on the ice, that is when the Leafs have the puck the most, get the most shot-attempts and allow the least.

When Marner has played the Leafs have had 29 more scoring chances than they’ve allowed. So the idea he can’t or doesn’t play defense is absurd. He cannot effect the save percentage of his goalie to a significant degree. This is a fact that is disputed by no informed person. If his goalie has an 87% save percentage while he’s on the ice, he is unlucky. It will for-sure (100% chance) normalize. And, if he keeps playing the exact same way, he won’t be a minus player. Guaranteed.

Marner is shooting 3.57% (all situations) and has one goal. This is going to change. The average player shoots 9% – Marner probably shoots even higher than that.

More from Editor In Leaf

Marner has a PDO of 95. He has a Corsi of 54%. The goalie has been terrible when he’s been on the ice. He has one goal. All this stuff will self correct. He’s actually playing great. Eventually the numbers will bear this out.

Demotion

I wanna talk for a second about one of the most senseless demotions in recent sports history.

After the Toronto Maple Leafs fifth game of the season, in which Marner, JVR and Bozak were on the ice for two goals against, Marner was demoted to the fourth line.

At this time, he had four points in five games, was on pace for 70 points, and the Leafs were 4-1. You could have easily looked at the goalie’s low save percentage while this line was on the ice to explain their problems, but Babcock didn’t care. (It was at this time I learned that people like to talk about combined minus numbers for a whole line – which is just crazy. Think about it).

The worst thing was that the first two games after the demotion, the Leafs won. This seemingly confirmed to Babcock that his idea was a smart one. Marner continued to ride the bench and see ice only with Matt Martin.

In the time between the Canadiens game (his last before demotion) and the Vegas game (he played 18 minutes) the Leafs went 4-6, which included a run of 2-6.

Since the demotion, Marner has had his production cut in half and the team has been terrible. It’s probably not a coincidence.

The Leafs need to immediately get Marner to a top-six role. He needs 20 minutes per night. This is a great team, but imagine what they’re going to look like when teams start to pull guys of Matthews because Marner is killing them?

Next: Time for Forward Depth to Step-Up

The worst thing the Leafs can do is trade Marner. I don’t care if they can get OEL or Doughty, or somehow both – it’s a hard pass. Mitch Marner is untouchable. Mitch Marner is playing well. Just give him his damn 20 minutes already.

Stats from ESPN.com, Naturalstattrick.com, hockeydb.com