Why the Toronto Maple Leafs Should Explore a Mitch Marner Trade
Welp. In an all-familiar fashion, the Toronto Maple Leafs 2020-21 season came to a disappointing early end, after such a promising and hopeful regular season.
Leading the Canadian division for 106 out of a total 116 days this season, the Toronto Maple Leafs set expectations significantly higher than ever before in the Shanahan/Dubas era. And management recognized that. They doubled down on the team’s impressive start by going all-in at the April 12th trade deadline, spending six draft picks to acquire Nick Foligno, Riley Nash, Ben Hutton, and David Rittich.
This team felt different. That is why this loss stings more than the previous four. There is a sense of apathy steaming from Leafsnation in the days following that epic collapse, and rightfully so. But what is so incredibly frustrating about this Toronto Maple Leafs team, this Toronto Maple Leafs playoff loss, compared to years prior, is that there is no single thing we can point to as the reason this team was unable to get it done.
“Team defense” or “Frederik Andersen” seemed to be the most common scapegoats of yesteryear, but it is hard to point to Jack Campbell or the Leafs’ three horses on the backend – Morgan Rielly, TJ Brodie, Jake Muzzin – as the reason we are not in the midst of a battle against the Winnipeg Jets.
No, the problem with this Toronto Maple Leafs team was that William Nylander, Alex Kerfoot, and Jason Spezza lead the team in playoff scoring.
Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner did not produce. As two of the highest-paid players on the team and in the NHL, that is unacceptable. And after not having a lead following a 4-0 win in Game Four, where do we go from here?
A roster shakeup is clearly needed.
If you are Kyle Dubas, and you receive a phone call from a rival general manager, the second Matthews’ name enters the conversation, you hang up. The reigning Rocket Richard trophy winner, the likely runner-up for the Hart Trophy and Ted Lindsay Finalist, an all-around talent who is a top-five (three?) player in the league has come up big countless times for this team.
So that leaves us with Marner.
What do you do with the $10.903 million winger, from Markham, Ontario? As unfortunate as this situation is, it is time to stop changing the players around the margins – Kyle Dubas and the Toronto Maple Leafs should explore trade options for Mitch Marner.
Marner’s Shortcomings
There is no denying the talent the Toronto Maple Leafs 2015 fourth overall pick can show on a nightly basis. His dazzling display of playmaking and vision is easily top five in the NHL, where you can rely on Marner to be a consistent 100-point player year in and year out.
That high hockey IQ he displays in the offensive zone is also used to be a menace in the defensive end and on the penalty kill too, as Marner lead Leafs forwards in even-strength defensive WAR and played 20 more short-handed minutes than his next closest teammate (Ilya Mikheyev) this season (stats; JFresh, NHL.com).
I recognize the value #16 brings to the table and you can bet the Toronto Maple Leafs organization does too, but it is hard to ignore the massive red flag in that Marner consistently follows up stellar regular seasons with poor playoff performances – and it is not entirely a small sample size.
In 32 career postseason games, Marner has five goals. To put that into perspective, he has taken six minor penalties, five of which are puck-over-the-glass. Since he signed his 6-year, $65,408,000 contract on September 13th, 2019, Marner has gone 18 straight playoff games (dating back to Game 2 vs. Boston in 2019) without a goal, with only five even-strength assists in that time frame (stats; Hockey-Reference).
As unfair of a comparison as some may see this to be, but why did Dubas decide it was time to move on from Nazem Kadri? Because the team could not count on him to show up when it mattered the most. Now, that was due to him losing his temper with reckless abandon, but the sentiment remains the same with Marner: can the team count on him to show up when it matters?
A career 11.3% shooter, Marner’s shooting percentage drops to 6.3% in the playoffs, and while some of that could be attributed to running into good goaltending, at the end of the day, in a results-driven league, that is simply not good enough.
And since his shot has become such a non-threat, opposing teams can generally sag off of Marner and focus most of their offensive attention onto Matthews as everyone knows that is where he is looking.
I am not a fan of using other teams as a comparison – because it feels like copying your friend’s homework without doing the work yourself – but I am going to anyway. You look around at some of the best teams in the NHL, their best players/top line have multiple threats that will burn you with time and space.
Nathan MacKinnon has Mikko Rantanen. David Pastrnak has Brad Marchand. Steven Stamkos has Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point.
Off-ice, the narrative surrounding Marner seems to be changing as well. As a hometown kid, he undoubtedly grew up scoring big goals for the Toronto Maple Leafs in his driveway with his friends and after finally being able to live out his childhood dream, it could just be as simple as the pressure is too much for Marner to handle.
But even with all that said, no reason to explore Marner trade options is as paramount as this: how often does a player of the caliber of the Buffalo Sabres’ superstar center become available?
9 times out of 10, the only way to acquire a player with the talent level of Jack Eichel is through the draft, but when that one instance crops up, you cannot pass up the opportunity.
How Could a Marner-for-Eichel Swap Help Toronto?
For one, Jack Eichel is a top 10 NHL player when healthy. There is no denying his capabilities as he represents a better scoring option than Marner. Eichel’s career-high in goals was set last season with 36 in 68 games – a 43 goal pace. Marner, for that matter, had his best goal pace this season with 20 in 55 – a 30 goal pace.
Another appealing factor in Eichel is the fact that he is a center. We all saw what happened when John Tavares went down with a serious injury in Game 1 as Nick Foligno and Alex Kerfoot were thrown into a position they may not be suitable for at this stage in their careers.
While Kerfoot did succeed alongside William Nylander and Alex Galchenyuk, you would feel a lot better with Eichel in the fold and him filling in as second-line center. Plus, as Tavares continues to age, a move to the wing feels inevitable, and an in-house replacement ready to go is an excellent luxury to have.
A first line of Zach Hyman (assuming he re-signs), Matthews, and Eichel is extremely enticing, and with the powerplay struggling for the majority of the season – and into the playoffs – the right-handed shooting Eichel would surely be a welcome present on the man-advantage.
Currently, the Leafs face-of-the-franchise lines up on the right flank in order to set up the one-timer. But with Marner as a complete non-shooting factor, penalty kill units can load up onto Matthews’ side and force the play away from him.
But with Eichel on the opposite flank, PK groups would be unable to cheat as much as they would normally like to do, creating a potentially potent five-man machine.
As a superstar who was drafted in 2015, the Massachusetts native has never appeared in the Stanley Cup playoffs and should the Toronto Maple Leafs make it back there in 2021-22 (which they likely will), you can bet Eichel will be amped up for his first taste of postseason action.
Clearly the Matthews-Marner friendship and connection is strong and moving Marner could cause a rift between the team and the player, but it is not as if Matthews and Eichel would be complete strangers as well.
The two of them were teammates with the USA Hockey National Development Program, the 2015 USA World Juniors team, and the 2016 World Cup of Hockey North American team.
Next. Toronto Maple Leafs Board of Executives Makes the Right Call. dark
As a Leafs fan from the Greater Toronto Area myself, I also grew up with those same dreams while playing driveway hockey as Marner did and nothing would be more enjoyable than seeing a fellow hometown kid win the Stanley Cup with the Blue and White.
But as the Toronto Raptors showed with the DeRozan-Kawhi trade, sometimes moving a core piece in pursuit of the greater good can lead the team to finally getting over the playoff hump.