Toronto Maple Leafs: Mitch Marner Underrated?

Toronto Maple Leafs forward Mitch Marner is a homegrown, hometown player on the roster of the league’s most ravenous fanbase.

Toronto Maple Leafs fans are known for overrating their own players to a ridiculous degree.

So how then can a player born locally and drafted by his hometown team become “underrated” when he plays for the Leafs?

Simple.  We are spoiled!

Toronto Maple Leafs

Maybe it’s just good karma for enduring decades of incompetence (Ballard, Fletcher the second time, Burke, Nonis, JFJ etc.), disappointments (Brian Berard’s injury, Gretzky’s highstick) or seeing hall of fame players that should have been Leafs in other uniforms (Lindros, Luongo, Rask, Niedermeyer), but the Leafs have been on a role lately.

William Nylander, Mitch Marner, Auston Matthews, Mike Babcock, and John Tavares.  It’s been quite the run.

So how exactly is Mitch Marner ‘underrated’?

Maybe ‘underrated’ isn’t the right word.  Everyone knows he’s good.  But he scored a lot of his points on the PP and everytime I see him mentioned, it’s usually someone pointing out that Nylander is just as good as he is, due to their similar 5v5 stats.  (This is true by the way, Nylander is Marner’s equal and maybe even better).

But the reason I say he is underrated is because of Auston Matthews and John Tavares.  Mitch Marner would have been the Toronto Maple Leafs ‘franchise’ player any other time except now.

Underrated?

Because the Leafs and their fans got lucky and somehow have three players on their roster better than Marner, we seem to take him for granted.

But make no mistake, Mitch Marner is inanely good. Last year, after being joined with Marleau and Kadri, he scored at something like a 90 point pace.  He is, without a doubt, one of the most fun players in the NHL to watch.

There is no reason why he can’t score a 100 points, or even lead the NHL in scoring one season.  He’s got that much talent. And he’s only 21.

Lost in the Nylander / Marner comparisons: Marner is younger and has played 26 less games.

Last season he scored 22 goals and 69 points.  This year, he’ll be the third or fourth forward other teams are concerned about when defending the Leafs. I think he should be a lock for 82 points, but more are possible.

If he scored 22 goals, he should score 30 this year.  But he’s so good, he could explode for 50.  Who knows?

I know that Mitch Marner isn’t really ‘underrated’  as we are used to using that word.  Jake Gardiner – who people continue to rip for some reason that makes no sense – is the definition of underrated.  But Marner is a potential franchise level player who gets to play second banana to Auston Matthews and now John Tavares.

There aren’t many NHL players as good as he is who get the third or fourth amount of press on their teams.  That’s all I’m saying.