The Leafs have undervalued Mitch Marner for years. They’ll pay the price when he leaves
Mitch Marner has to go.
It’s an especially sad statement considering the Maple Leafs have waited a lifetime for a homegrown talent to be as good as he is.
But it matters little. What he has accomplished in his nine years in Toronto is irrelevant to many as it has come without any significant playoff success. No one knows that more than Marner and that’s why fans can expect to watch him walk out the door July 1 when free agency opens.
He’ll leave the franchise as underappreciated as when he arrived.
When the Leafs drafted Marner with the fourth pick in 2015, then head coach Mike Babcock certainly didn’t envision him becoming the fastest to reach 700 points in franchise history. At the time all he saw was how a big strapping defenceman, Noah Hanifin, slipped through his draft hands and into the lap of the Carolina Hurricanes with the very next pick.
It was Mark Hunter’s draft and, as the Leafs’ director of player personnel at the time, he was granted final say. While Hunter, the co-owner of the London Knights team with whom Marner played his junior hockey, often referred to him as “special,” Babcock only saw a small player who took the place of a six-foot-three stud blueliner. And so began the uphill battle within management, with Marner caught in the middle.
Like any spoiled child who doesn’t get his way, Babcock pouted and took it out on Marner, often referring to him as Mouse in front of his teammates, according to multiple sources. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that sort of open ridicule eventually erodes everyone in the room. Apparently Babcock didn’t care.
The tipping point, of course, came when Babcock forced Marner, and only Marner, to rank his teammates in order of their work ethic and then showed the list to the players who ranked lowest (he put himself last). Still, Marner took his lumps, being relegated to third- and fourth-line duties, but he managed to put up 224 points during his three-year, entry-level deal despite all of Babcock’s demeaning attempts at sabotaging one of the top players he was supposed to be nurturing and developing.
So if people wonder why I like this player so much, it’s because of what he needlessly had to endure early in his NHL career. He’s the underdog who overachieved.
The poor treatment gave Marner the determination to fight for his second contract in 2019 when the Leafs made a catastrophic error in judgment by underestimating his production and value. The offer of $6 million (U.S.) a year for the maximum eight years was undervalued for his point production, so it was easily rejected, and his team chose to wait for Auston Matthews, also due for a bridge deal, to re-sign first.
