The Toronto Maple Leafs best player of all-time is Auston Matthews. After that, it's Mats Sundin and then probably Dave Keon.
But after that, the best player in Toronto Maple Leafs franchise history is Mitch Marner, and when it's all said and done, he'll likely be the second best player to ever wear the blue and white.
Marner is already ahead of Gilmour, Clark, Sittler and Salming. It doesn't matter if people susceptible to being brainwashed by their phones don't think so, it's the truth.
Marner has spent eight years in Toronto, playing 576 games, scoring 194 goals, and 445 assists for a total of 639 points.
There Is Really No Way the Toronto Maple Leafs Can Overpay Mitch Marner
Marner is already 8th all-time in franchise scoring and will pass two more players (Ron Ellis and George Armstrong) this year to move into sixth. He is only ten points behind Matthews, so Marner could possibly end up in the top five this year, depending on how next season goes.
Marner is 3rd all-time in franchise history in points per game, after only Matthews and Gilmour (who played during a much higher scoring era). (All stats from quanthockey.com).
Marner is even 16th in goals and 28th in games-played.
The only thing missing from Marner's career is team success in the playoffs, and he's going to get it. A lot of players - Nathan MacKinnon, Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Steve Yzerman, Ryan O'Reilly - who are notable Playoff Performeres, didn't have any success in the playoffs during their first eight seasons either.
It isn't Marner's fault that Matthews has been sick or injured in three of the last four season's playoffs. It's not Marner's fault that his team's GM refused to upgrade at the trade deadline and instead loaded up with defenseman who couldn't move the puck and stuck with a wavier-wire goalie.
Marner actually has great playoff stats. He scores more per game than most players of his generation and has excellent on-ice advanced stats such as expected goals percentage.
Of the wingers who score similar to him, none of them play better defense. He is literally one 100 point season and some playoff success away from being universally acknowledged as the best player in the NHL outside of the McDavdid-Matthews-MacKinnon-Markar Quatro.
Which brings me to the main point: You can't overpay Mitch Marner.
If you made him the NHL's highest paid player, it would be stupid, but it wouldn't hurt you as much as say signing Oliver Eckman Larsson to a 3 year $3.5 million contract that overpays him by $2.5 million.
OEL put up the same numbers in the same role last year that Giordano did for 900K. They both played third-pairng minutes on the left side for a top team.
Matthews currently has a cap hit of $13.25, while Nylander makes $11.5. That makes Marner's deal pretty easy, since he is right in the middle of those two.
However, the Leafs probably want to sign Marner for the full eight-years, so they may have to go to $14 million to make that happen. If that happens, they still wouldn't be overpaying him by as much as they are overpaying Ekman-Larsson.
And, frankly, in the NHL you litterally cannot overpay an elite player. Sure, you can give them too much money compared to other best players, but ever single NHL roster is loaded with mid-range players making between $1-$4 million too much, that could be replaced, without much noticable loss, with a replacement player from the AHL.
The NHL cap system has made it all but impossible to hurt yourself by signing your best players. Whatever number the Leafs write in beside the words "Eight Years" won't hurt them at all.
The only things that will hurt them are trading a future hall of famer at a loss, or letting him walk in free-agency.