With each passing day, it’s feeling more and more likely that the Mitch Marner era is over, spelling the end of the Toronto Maple Leafs’ Core Four as we know it.
Marner has been a hot topic in Leafs Nation recently, and former Maple Leafs captain Rick Vaive hopped on Leafs Morning Take Wednesday to give his two cents about the hometown kid’s playoff shyness.
“If you’re from Toronto that’s even more intense, but you’ve got to be able to let things roll off your back and just go out there and do your job,” Vaive told Nick Alberga. “I’m not so sure that he’s capable of doing that. I think he takes the insults that people say about him and stuff like that, I think he takes that very personally. And you can’t do that if you’re gonna play in this market.”
Vaive co-wrote a guest column for the Toronto Sun titled ‘If you can’t stand the heat in Toronto, time to go.’
On Marner, he writes:
I watch him during the national anthem and he seems nervous, I see his interviews and he’s uncomfortable. When you get into a high-stakes playoff series against a team such as Florida, that’s not a good look.
I think Mitch gets intimidated. You look at him going for the puck and he’s like a figure skater, afraid to get hit. As I’ve said before, a change of scenery will do him good, at the same time understanding how much he loves Toronto.
With no disrespect meant to figure skating, it does appear sometimes that Marner may be more Scott Moir than Morgan Rielly. There’s no doubt he’s a highly-skilled skater who knows his way around a sheet of ice, but at the same time, he seems to have no interest in the physical aspects that come with postseason hockey.
Considering where we are on the subject of Marner very quickly, it’s easy to forget that he could, in theory, still re-sign in Toronto. But at the same time, it just doesn’t seem very likely given everything we know about Marner, the contract he’s looking for, the reputation he’s garnered in Toronto, and vice versa.
“Darren Ferris, his agent, likes his guys to go to free agency and see what’s out there. So I’m assuming come July 1st he probably won’t be signed,” Vaive said. “He’s a great player, there’s no question about that. It’s just, can he live and play in this market? And I’m not sure that he’s capable of putting all those other things aside and going out and getting the job done … I just think being in, let’s say, Utah, or San Jose, or somewhere like that, I think he’s gonna not feel quite as bad as being here in Toronto, being a Toronto kid.”
While those are just two of the many possible destinations Marner could find his way to this offseason, the point stands that there’s certainly a possibility he can rise to the occasion in a market outside his hometown. Some players thrive in the face of that kind of pressure, while some can’t face it at all.
Now, it’s up to teams across the league to take the gamble and find out for themselves if he can be a playoff performer for them. But at this point, it’s not hard to imagine there’s a number of franchises lining up for the chance at a skater who is consistently at or near 100 points, even if he’ll ghost them in the postseason.
