Toronto Maple Leafs: Mitch Marner Can be a Top 5 NHL Player

The Toronto Maple Leafs already the second best player in the world, but it’s not impossible that they end up with two of the top five.

With apologies to Nathan MacKinnon, Auston Matthews, of the Toronto Maple Leafs,  is the second best player in the world.  If not for a period of ten games or so where he was unable to shoot the puck, Auston Matthews would have flirted with goal per game status last season.

Matthews scored 41 goals in 52 games while playing much of the season hurt. While McDavid scored 100 points in a 56 game schedule, Matthews actually was worth more wins over the course of the season.   I’m not saying Matthews is as good as McDavid, because I don’t think you can look to just one stat and declare victory, but I do think it’s closer than most people understand.

And I don’t think MacKinnon, as good as he is, is on the same level, though I’d rank him as the third best player in hockey right now.   After that, there is a whole bunch of really good players contending for room in the top five – Sidney Crosby, Alex Barkov, Braydon Point, Mark Stone, Mikko Rantanen, Brad Marchand, David Pastrnak, and Sebastion Aho.

Also in this group: Mitch Marner.

Toronto Maple Leafs and Mitch Marner

Mitch Marner is, for reasons that can only be explained by  a 50+ year Stanley Cup drought, somehow a polarizing player in Toronto these days.

This despite coming in second in 5v5 scoring, and 4th overall in the regular season scoring race.  In addition to this, Marner provided elite 5v5 defense, as seen by this @jfresh card. 

As you can see from the chart, Marner was better at defense last year than 86% of forwards in the NHL.  At 5v5, he is unreal – second in scoring, and better at defense than any of this top scoring peers.   If the Leafs power-play didn’t just disappear in the second half of the season, he’d likely have been second in overall scoring and garnered some second or third place Hart Trophy votes.

The thing about Marner is that if this defense is real – as in, does he consistently put up elite defense year to year? – then he is going to be a top three player in the NHL.

Matthews and McDavid are essentially untouchable.  But there is no reason that Marner, if his defense remains elite, and he continues to kill penalties, can’t become the NHL’s 3rd best player. He’ll score as much as MacKinnon, but he’ll add in elite defense.

Now, sure, he hasn’t scored in 18 playoff games, but he does have great underlying numbers and even a bad player should score every 18 games.  The fact is that Marner just got on an unlucky streak in recent playoff games.  This isn’t anything to worry about though, because as time goes on, he’ll correct to his norm and put a pile of pucks into the net.

Auston Matthews is already the best Toronto Maple Leafs of all time, and it’s not impossible that Marner ends up as the second best.   If he keeps up the elite defense, he’ll be a top five player in the NHL for the next few  years, with a chance to be a modern day Marian Hossa.