"Obviously We Are Looked Upon As Kinda Gods Here"--Mitch Marner

Ooof. Mitchell...

Reads worse than it sounds in my opinion, but this is the EXACT wrong thing to say at the WORST possible time. It is easy to pick on Marner right now. He was completely ineffectual in yet another playoff series. Another Game 7 loss. Another year without playing hockey in the month of June for Toronto

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Bunch of blue bloods on that list...

I think it is time for the Leafs to cut bait and start a retool. Biz put it perfectly. 

50% of the payroll is tied up in 4 guys and the Leafs scored 3 goals one time in the series. It is actually a miracle that they were able to push it to 7 games with that production and missing games from Matthews and Nylander. People can understand a dry spell, even in the playoffs, but the lack of battle from Marner probably drops him from "god" status.  

Feels like something has to change for Toronto, but they're also boxed in by the ole Stan Bowman NMCs. Every single one of their core guys has an NMC including Marner. Fuck, even David Kampf and Jarnkrok have M-NMCs. Marner would have to want to go. I suppose they can just run it back one more time with this group, get dusted again, and then take the nearly $22M combined that they're giving to Tavares and Marner and spread that out across the rest of the roster when those deals expire after 2025. 

I do think trying to trade those two guys is the right move if they'll agree. Get picks and prospects back. Replenish the pool. Spread the money. Be a deeper team. Have some guys with guts. I'd call Utah and see if they want a big name for their new team. 

Either way, I think it's pretty clear that this current experiment has run it's course.