Toronto Maple Leafs: Mitch Marner Teases Super-Stardom

The Toronto Maple Leafs Mitch Marner is on fire.

This week, in a mid-week back-to-back, the Toronto Maple Leafs played to a respectable 1-1 record. The real story though, is the play of forward Mitch Marner.

In Tuesday’s dismantling of the Carolina Hurricanes, Mitch Marner had a career game (so far) with one goal and three assists.  The goal was his fourth of the season, and overall he had six shots, and 13:50 in ice-time to go with the four points.  He also had a CF% of 57.69, but the stats fail to tell you one thing: he looked awesome doing it.

Wednesday

Marner followed up his breakout performance against the Hurricanes with a possibly even better performance against the Blue Jackets.  Though he had “just” the single goal, Marner skated for over 17 minutes, had seven shots and put up an incredible 80% possession rating.

What was even better was the fact that with the Leafs down by three goals and the clock winding down, he not only scored, but  immediately after, he almost scored again.  Only a mixture of awesome goaltending and luck kept the Marner from making it a one goal game.

Mitch Marner

Mitch Marner is having a great season, despite some bad luck that has kept his goal total ridiculously low. For the season, he is 54.28% CF, which is outstanding, and he has a respectable 25 points in 36 games.  This is despite having an even-strength shooting-percentage of 4.26%, and playing several games on the fourth line.

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There are 166 forwards that have averaged more ice-time per game than Mitch Marner this year, but despite this, he is 20th (overall) in 5v5 assists.  His 1.77 assists/60 is 15th best in the NHL.  Even though his 4% shooting has limited his goals, he still ranks 83rd in the NHL with 2.04 points per 60.  That is first line production.

The best part is that even though Marner has put up solid numbers to date this season, it’s only the last two games where he has shown a glimpse of his ceiling.  If we see the Marner of the last two games more frequently, and if the goals start to go in for him (which they will) we are talking about an elite player.  With bad offensive luck and limited ice time, he’s managing first line production.

If he can frequently perform at the level we’ve seen this week, he will be one of the best players in the NHL, and a franchise player.   If he were to start getting more ice time and maybe a slot on the first line with Matthews,  the potential is insane.  This week Marner teased the super-star player he can be, and if it’s for real, then you can go ahead and move that Stanley Cup timetable forward by several years.

Next: A (Really Fun) Pipe Dream: Erik Karlsson and the Leafs

Mitch Marner absolutely dominated this week, and if what we are witnessing is his maturation into an NHL superstar, then this is the best Christmas Gift the Toronto Maple Leafs could possible receive.

Stats from Naturalstattrick.com