Gutting Report Confirms There Was a Path to Keeping Mitch Marner in a Maple Leafs Jersey

The Maple Leafs are no strangers to collapsing, especially during the playoffs when the lights are the brightest and the pressure is high.

We all remember the heartbreaking collapse against the Boston Bruins in 2013. Likewise, we're even more aware of the devastating loss to the Montreal Canadiens in 2021, allowing the lowly Habs to come back from a 3-1 deficit to eliminate the Leafs in 7 games.

Neither of those collapses holds a candle to the Leafs' disastrous second round series against the Florida Panthers in the 2024-25 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Games 3, 5, and 7 were inexcusable, and may have cost the Leafs a run all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals, and because of that, heads did roll.

Not only was Leafs President Brendan Shanahan sent packing, but Mitch Marner was shipped to the Vegas Golden Knights as well, after his reputation for vanishing in big games and his stress and anxiety related to the pressure in the market and from the Toronto media took a heavy toll.

While it had appeared as though the writing was on the wall for Marner in Toronto for some time, Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman revealed this week during a special edition of 32 Thoughts: The Podcast, that the Leafs did indeed have the ability to retain Marner, barring the collapse that ended up occurring.

One can't help but wonder whether or not the Leafs entirely dropped the ball here. Not only did they allow Marner to consistently shoot himself in the foot by putting him in front of a camera when he was ill-equipped to deal with the media pressure, but they also may have had a hand in helping Marner out the door when they failed to get his ego in check earlier in his career when ex-Leafs GM Kyle Dubas caved and allowed him to win his first big contract negotiation.

If Marner was appropriately humbled by the organization in 2019, and if the team had protected him from himself by limiting the constant media appearances, perhaps the Leafs still have Marner in the fold, and perhaps he'd be much more successful than he was due to being able to just play under far less pressure to buckle under.