Toronto Maple Leafs: Mitch Marner Is the 4th Best Player in the World

With apologies to Nathan Mackinnon,  Mitch Marner of the Toronto Maple Leafs is the 3rd best forward, and 4th best player overall, in the world right now.

The Toronto Maple Leafs second-best player is the fourth best player in the NHL, after Auston Matthews, Connor McDavid (they are co-best players, as Matthews goals and defense are, at least, the equal of McDavid’s points) and Cale Makar.

Markar is probably also  elite defensively, and he has over a point per game in his 178 game career, and a Stanley Cup, and a Norris Trophy.  He is the best defenseman in the NHL since Erik Karlsson was in his prime, and likely will surpass even Karlson to be the second best since Nick Lidstrom.

But let’s get back to Marner.  

Toronto Maple Leafs Mitch Marner is the World’s 4th Best Player

Marner will enter this season looking for playoff success, as well as trying to usurp Matthews’ Hart Trophy.

Playing on the Leafs, failing to score much in the playoffs, and playing in Matthew’s shadow has made Marner really underrated.

When I tweeted out my top 10 NHL player list, the discussion mostly centred around Marner being ranked too high.  In the subsequent arguments, it became clear that most people who didn’t rank Marner 4th overall had no idea the kinds of numbers he puts up.

To be fair, once you get to the middle of this list, you could rank the player’s in any conceivable order.  However, I think Marner deserves to be 4th in a special tier with Matthews, McDavid and Makar.

The rest of the list is more or less interchangeable, because there really isn’t a significant difference between them.  They are all great.

I left off Draisaitl and Huberdeau because their defense gives back almost all their gains at 5v5, where 80% of the game is played.  For example, Draisaitl is under 50% expected-goals for the entirety of the last four seasons.  The Oilers have been outshot by over 100 shots in the last four years of Draisaitl’s career.

The Oilers end up winning the minutes that Draisaitl plays, because trading scoring chances is always going to favor Draisaitl coming out on top, but it’s a very inefficient way to use a superstar of this quality.   Until the Oilers can routinely crush the minutes where Draisaitl is on the ice, he will never be good enough to warrant his reputation as one of the top players in the NHL.

For the 46 games he played after returning from injury January 15th, Mitch Marner led the NHL in 5v5 points, and came second (to Matthews) in goals.

When looking at all game situations combined, Marner led the NHL with 76 points in 46 games, a 135 point pace.   That’s 12 points higher than McDavid’s career high.

During this time, Marner scored 29 goals in 46 games, a 52 goal pace, good for fourth overall in total situations.

In addition, Marner would have 4 straight 100 point seasons, if not for Covid and injuries.  He finished 10th in points last year, but missed 10 games.  Prorated for a full season he would have finished 4th in points, ahead of Draisaitl, with 111.

On top of the production, Marner is an elite defender who kills penalties.  Last season he posted a ridiculous 62% expected goals rating.

Here is a list of players who did better and played close to as many minutes: Marchand and Bergeron, Matthews and MacAvoy.

That’s five guys, only one of whom is in competition with Marner for being a top 10 NHL player.

Detractors will point to the playoff numbers, but Marner is over 60% expected-goals for the last three playoff series.   The fact that he hasn’t scored much, despite playing in a way as to produce the same (or better) Expected Numbers, tells us that he has just been unlucky.

With Marner on the ice in the last four playoff series, the Leafs have shot just 6% which is about half of what the team does when Marner is normally on the ice.   It is pretty much guaranteed that as soon as Marner’s playoff sample size is large enough, it will match exactly to his regular season production. (All stats 5v5 unless indicated, and from naturalstattrick.com).

Marner scores as much or more than all the NHL’s best players, and he plays better defense than anyone not named Bergeron, Barkov or Couturier.   He is the NHL’s 3rd best forward, and 4th best player overall.  Look for him to secure a Hart Trophy nomination this season, while leading the Toronto Maple Leafs to glory.