Should the Flyers try to acquire Mitch Marner? But Unfortunately…
It is another time in early May and the city of Toronto is facing an existential crisis about its hockey team. The Toronto Maple Leafs, with all their heralded players and stars and coaching staff and front office, have found themselves facing another early playoff exit after falling to the Boston Bruins in seven games.
They pushed themselves after going down three games to one in the series, and forced the final game, and even forced the precious Game 7 overtime that we all so desire for the dramatics. But, it is the Leafs, and the Bruins quickly pushed them aside and moved on to the second round.
This isn’t a Leafs blog — thank God, those are disgusting. But now our Philadelphia Flyers can possibly take advantage of a team potentially panicking and selling off one of their core members for the sake of a change of personnel to provide something different. Could we see Leafs general manager Brad Treliving making a big move because they need to do something to show that next year can be different?
All fingers are pointing to 26-year-old winger Mitch Marner as the odd man out.
With just one year remaining on his massive contract that carries a $10.9-million cap hit, and both Auston Matthews’s and William Nylander’s long-term extensions beginning next season; it just feels like Marner is going to be the scapegoat for the Leafs’ failures. Which isn’t all that incorrect to do. The hometown winger didn’t look all that engaged through the first round, scoring just one goal and three points in an albeit low-scoring first round. It was just not good enough, yet again, to have a player demand that much of the salary cap and then just disappear when it all matters.
Now every single hockey fan you talk to in Toronto is thinking about Marner being traded to spend his last year of his deal on a different team. And not just to shake things up, but as just some sort of sign of effort to improve the on-ice team. Hell, they already got rid of the head coach after firing Sheldon Keefe on Thursday and now their eyes have gone towards the roster with Marner being certainly the most likely to go.
But that’s enough about that stinky team up north and their maligned talents. The big question simply is: Can the Philadelphia Flyers hockey club take advantage of the Leafs potentially selling low on an All-Star talent because they determined they need to shuffle the roster around?
Before getting into the mean and old details of contract situations and if acquiring a player in Marner’s situation even makes sense for the Flyers right now, it’s important to understand just what the player could bring to the table.
In case you really do not care about hockey in Toronto, it’s important to note that Marner has scored 91 goals and 281 points while averaging just over 21 minutes a game, in 221 games through the last three seasons. Just putting it bluntly: That is a whole lot of points while playing at the top of the lineup on one of the best teams in hockey. And he kind of does it all. Marner has been an All-Star multiple times while also receiving Selke Trophy votes through his last five seasons and will probably get at least one for his efforts this past campaign.
He has been in charge of killing penalties while also being a leader on the power play and been part of one of the best top-line combinations with Matthews. It’s kind of easy to just chalk Marner up as being one of the NHL’s elite talents, but by going further, just how much of his production is solely on him?
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