Former Maple Leafs Winger Sheds a Light on Who Deserves the Blame for Marner Drama
Photo credit: Isaiah J. Downing - Imagn Images
The recent Mitch Marner saga has opened up a can of worms for the Leafs that leads back to ex-president Brendan Shanahan and ex-GM Kyle Dubas.
Mitch Marner is going to be talked about ad nauseam all year long. It was an inevitable conversation topic after his departure but his recent media tour has only opened up a larger can of worms that won't be easily swept under the rug.
There is a lot of blame and accountability to go around from player to team, but perhaps all of this could have been avoided, had the Toronto Maple Leafs acted a bit more promptly when they offered Marner his first contract post-ELC.
Not only was his AAV hard to digest at the time but the real kicker was giving him a no-movement clause for the final 2 seasons. At the time it might have been hard to imagine the circus that would unfold but it was a fatal flaw that has hurt the Leafs for years.
It's a situation that could have been avoided, but because of the buzz it's generating now, TSN's Jeff O'Neill would like people to remember who should actually be carrying the blame.
If you're going to present him the contract that you did and you don't move him the summer before, don't expect anything different that happened the way it played it out. You gave him that opportunity, as soon as that July 1st kicked in, you gave him the opportunity to do what he did, so there's no other thing to blame than that. He had the right to do that.
The former NHLer turned analyst makes a pretty good point. Handing out trade protections in contracts became the norm, especially in Toronto, and it puts you in a bind, no matter the stature of the player.
Trade talks didn't really materialize until the mid-point of Marner's contract, but it certainly ramped up before his no-movement clause was going to kick in ahead of the 2023-24 season.
The Leafs kept failing time and time again, and with changes needing to be made, the writing had been on the wall for players like Marner. Unfortunately, even if Dubas was coming close to making a deal, he was fired before anything could materialize.
At the very least, if there's one positive to take out of this, it's that the Marner debacle will be a hard lesson learned. The new regime will be more aware in the future, especially considering how many current Leafs players are immovable because of it.
| POLL | ||
SEPTEMBRE 7 | 810 ANSWERS Former Maple Leafs Winger Sheds a Light on Who Deserves the Blame for Marner Drama Do you agree with Jeff O'Neill's point about the Mitch Marner drama? | ||
| Yes | 682 | 84.2 % |
| No | 128 | 15.8 % |
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