Should Leafs fans view Mitch Marner as a hero or villain? A debate with myself

New York Times

5 hours ago

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It's official. The Mitch Marner era is over in Toronto, with the Leafs executing a sign-and-trade deal that sends him to Vegas Golden Knights hours before Monday's midnight deadline.
Leafs fans, how are we feeling about all of this? More specifically, how are we feeling about Marner himself?
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Let's put the question even more simply: When he makes his first trip back to Toronto, are you booing him? Does he get an ovation? Something in between? No reaction at all?
I think I can guess where the majority might be leaning today. I'm also pretty sure that it's far from unanimous. So today, let's debate the subject with arguments from two different types of fans, both of whom are me.
In one corner, my sports fan brain – logical, rational and not especially susceptible to easy narratives. In the other, my sports fan heart, which is not quite as rational, but is also the main reason I'm here.
It's worth pointing out that the last time we broke out this gimmick for a Leafs debate, it was 2022 and we were still doing the 'run it back' dance with this team. Back then, my head said to stay the course, while my heart said to blow it all up. If you look back at that post today, well, I think it's fair to say that the heart won, or at least it should have. We'll see if that holds true today.
Mitch Marner is an ex-Leaf. Are we mad at him? Should we be? I'm not sure, so let's drop the gloves and square off.
OK gentlemen, you know the drill. Let's start with the opening arguments…
Head: Mitch Marner played nine seasons in Toronto. In that time, he scored more points than all but four players in the 100+ year history of the franchise. He's their all-time leading scorer among wingers. He was a first-team All-Star twice, making him the first Leafs to achieve that honor multiple times since the 1960s. He's easily one of the greatest Maple Leafs of all time, and quite possibly the single best winger they've ever had.
Now he's choosing to sign a rich deal and continue his career elsewhere, something he has every right to do. This isn't complicated — he was a great Leaf who did just about everything you could have asked of him, for nearly a decade. Now he wants to move on. As a fan, you say thank you and turn the page.
Heart: First of all, nice job slipping in that 'just about' qualifier. We'll get to the playoff performances in a minute. But first, let's look at the bigger picture. Marner was a homegrown kid who grew up as a Leaf fan, even wearing number 93 for Doug Gilmour. He should have owned this town, the way Gilmour did decades ago. Instead, he's leaving as a villain, and it's all because he chose to prioritize his contract and his comfort over the team, then never lived up to that contract once the games mattered.
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To top it all off, there's a whiff of petulance hanging over his departure, with murmurs that he somehow feels disrespected by a team that constantly bent over backwards to keep him happy. So now he's taking his ball and going … well, not home, actually, but as far away as possible.
Head: Which he has every right to do. His contract is up. He doesn't owe the team anything.
Heart: Oh, give me a break. He owes them plenty. For six years, he was overpaid. Every spring, he'd disappear, and some increasingly large portion of the fan base would call for a trade. But the organization never even tried to move him, instead racing to reassure him with public and private vows to stay the course. They gave him no-trade protection as soon as he was eligible for it. Even when the team had the ability to move him, the team president would personally call to assure him they wouldn't think about it. If he was ever even mildly criticized or disciplined by a coach, you could count on them immediately walking it back to protect his feelings. He was protected by this team for nine years. And at the end of all of it, not only did he not re-sign, he reportedly wasn't even interested in serious negotiations. He had both eyes on the door the whole time. And how he's going to play the victim on the way out?
Head: Good lord, you're dramatic.
Heart: Maybe. But show me where I'm wrong.
Head: Gladly. First of all, all this talk about Marner sulking or playing the victim is just made up. He hasn't said a bad word about the Leafs publicly. You and all the other fans saying stuff like this are just projecting. You need him to be the bad guy, so you're imagining scenarios to paint him that way. He hasn't done any of that.
Heart: Yeah, I guess some of those leaks to friendly media over the years just fell out of the sky.
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Head: Please. Sorry that the biggest media machine in the hockey world occasionally got a morsel to chew on. But let's talk about a bigger issue, one that's been hanging over this whole situation for years now: that six-year contract he signed back in 2019.
Heart: By all means, let's do that.
Head: He lived up to it. The Leafs gave him a $10.9 million cap hit, and his production matched that. Yes, absolutely, the playoff results weren't there. But when you look at his regular-season numbers, he was absolutely a $10.9 million player on balance. Most years, probably better. How do you watch a guy live up to his contract and still cry about him being overpaid?
Heart: Because he was! You can run the numbers however you want, but that 2019 deal was his second contract. Just about every other young star signs a second deal that's team-friendly — that's how the system is supposed to work. But no, not Mitch Marner. He had to try to reset the market for young RFAs, so he let the talks drag on all summer long, let rumors of offer sheets hang out there, and watched his agent talk trash about being lowballed.
He worked every bit of leverage he had, signed a record-breaking deal, and then watched comparable young players like Mikko Rantanen and Brayden Point and Matthew Tkachuk sign for significantly less. Hey, quick question, did any of those guys win anything on those deals? I feel like they might have.
Head: So he should have intentionally signed for less than he knew he was worth, because that's what everyone else was doing.
Heart: Well, yeah. It's called market value.
Head: OK, so he got more than market value, then lived up to the contract anyway. That feels like something you should be mad at Kyle Dubas and the Leafs front office for, not the player for accepting the offer. By the way, didn't Auston Matthews sign for even more, months before Marner's deal got done?
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Heart: Oh don't worry, we're not letting Dubas off the hook. And yes, Matthews took pretty much the same 'squeeze every penny' approach that Marner did. But he won an MVP and three Rocket Richards on that contract. And more importantly, he's still here. For now. If we're doing this same debate three years from now for Matthews, we'll cross that bridge then.
For now, the point is that Marner's extension changed everything. It's the moment when he went from hometown hero that everyone was rooting for to something else. It's ratcheted up the pressure, and the expectations, and rightly so. It absolutely set him up to be the villain some day. And he knew that, or should have, and he pushed for it anyway. And the fans eventually ended up resenting him for it, which was a 100 percent foreseeable outcome. Hope those extra few bucks were worth it.
Head: Just to be clear, those 'few extra bucks' were millions of dollars that he could use to build a future for his family. But sure, feel free to sit on your couch and lecture him about how he should have taken less if he wanted everyone to like him more.
Heart: Hey, if you're going to be the sort of player who cares deeply about being liked, then make your decisions accordingly. Or he could have come through in the playoffs. That also would have done it too. Let's not skip over that part.
Head: We won't, and it's fair criticism. The Core Four never came through in the postseason, which is why the era ultimately failed. It's completely rational for fans to be mad about that. But why does Marner get all the blame? Why was he always the scapegoat for this era?
Heart: He wasn't. That's revisionist history. Are we really going to pretend that William Nylander wasn't the whipping boy for years in Toronto, getting dropped into ridiculous trade rumors for second-pairing defensive defensemen every few months? Or that fans weren't trying to figure out how to send John Tavares to Robidas Island just a few years ago? The market has been all over Matthews at various points, especially in the playoffs. This idea that Marner was the only one who took criticism is a flat-out myth.
Head: Is it? It didn't feel that way this spring.
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Heart: Sure, because this was the year we knew he was on the way out.
Head: Maybe he wouldn't have been if the fans and media and everyone else had just appreciated him more.
Heart: Appreciation is a two-way street. Like we said, Marner was all set up to be a hero in this city. And he absolutely was treated that way, for most of his time here. He even said so himself — we all remember his infamous quote about being viewed as 'kind of gods.'
Head: Which is a quote that gets all twisted out of context to this day. He wasn't bragging. He was making a reasonable point and the words came out wrong. That happened to him a few times over the years, but it's no reason to turn on a guy. Unless, of course, you've already made up your mind and you're just looking for an excuse.
Heart: The gods quote was fine and I said that at the time. But you can't say that the fans view you as a god one year and then complain that you didn't get enough respect the next. How much is enough? Did everyone need to throw rose petals at his feet on every shift? At what point does any of the responsibility shift to the player to actively earn the respect he wants so much?
Head: But again, he did. He was a fantastic player for a long time. And then he wasn't, way too often, once the playoffs started. Granted. But even then, it's not like he wasn't trying. It's not like he didn't want to win in Toronto. If you think his drop-off in playoff production means he's not worth a massive extension, then you should be happy that he's getting it elsewhere. But it's no reason to carry a grudge.
Heart: Holding a grudge is what fans do. Or at least, it's what we do when a guy who's been coddled can't seem to wait to leave. He wanted out so badly that he may even have been talking to Vegas early, setting up the Leafs to force the Knights into a deal out of fear of tampering charges.
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Head: OK, but you're a Leafs fan. Shouldn't you be glad they got something out of that situation? Now you don't have to hear about letting a guy go for nothing.
Heart: Oh sure, a player may have broken the rules to get out of town, but it means we got some bottom-six forward depth out of it. Cool. Thanks a million.
And by the way, on the subject of the Golden Knights: You're telling me that Marner didn't get enough respect in Toronto, so he's going bail out and head to the single most cutthroat franchise in the league? This makes sense to everyone? Good luck with all that respect you were craving when you're being shoved out the door in three years to make room for Jack Hughes or Cale Makar or whichever ever shiny new toy is available.
Head: Again, the respect thing is just fans making stuff up to be mad about. Mitch Marner signed a fair contract with a good team in a cool city where his family will be happy. And he did it after nine years of being one of the most productive Leafs of all time. That's all that should matter. When he comes back to town with the Knights during the season, welcome him home with a big ovation. He earned it.
Heart: No thanks. I'll be booing him like it's Game 7 of another playoff series he no-showed for.
Head: Fine. Go ahead and do that. It's your right as a fan, and all that. Just know that you're not being reasonable, and you're ultimately not helping the team attract star players in the future.
Heart: Even if we treat them like gods?