Team: 2019-20 Toronto Maple Leafs

Initial Creation Date: Aug. 16, 2019

Published: Aug. 17, 2019

Salary Cap Mode: Basic

For those of you who do not want to read this lengthy post, the tl;dr version is I will live with a 7@10.5aav deal (all in SB's and with a 20+ team NTC/NMC). It is an overpayment by ~1-1.5 million, but considering all young stars are underpaid relative to their production (even McDavid, Matthews, and insert young star here) I will live with it.
Below is a projected Leafs roster with the 'fair' Marner contract.

For those of you who want to see contract comparables and a deeper breakdown; grab the popcorn.

Going based on news (Matthews) and my opinions/100% factual statements (not Matthews) here are a list of contract comparables for Marner (in no particular order). There are other comparable players but I will only be profiling some of the more prominent ones who currently have a contract.
Before you start, remember that the Matthews deal was signed in a new era of contracts for star centres so his % is by far the highest (that and the fact that he isn't a comparable for any of these players except for Kane).

Name - Contract - Starting Year - Cap% of starting year

Matthews- 5@11.634 - 2019-20 - 14.27%
Kane-------- 5@6.300 - 2010-11 - 10.61%
Tarasenko- 8@7.500 - 2015-16 - 10.50%
Aho---------- 5@8.454 - 2019-20 - 10.37%
Nylander-- 6@6.962 - 2018-19 - 8.76%
Pastrnak-- 6@6.666 - 2017-18 - 8.89%
Gaudreau- 6@6.750 - 2016-17 - 9.25%
Meier------- 4@6.000 - 2019-20 - 7.36%

A basic average on the term and the % gives you a contract of 5.625 years at a 10% hit. That gives you roughly a 5@8 - 6@8.5 which is right around the Aho contract and intrinsically is fairly close in terms of Marner's actual value on that term. At this point however, I do not think he will get his intrinsic worth and will be badly overpaid.

Basic counting stats (in per game for context):
Name - Year 1 GPG/PPG - Year 2 GPG/PPG - Year 3 GPG/PPG - etc, until 2nd contract starts

Matthews-- 0.49/0.84 - 0.55/1.02 - 0.54/1.07
Kane--------- 0.26/0.88 - 0.31/0.88 - 0.37/1.07
Tarasenko- 0.21/0.29 - 0.33/0.67 - 0.48/0.95
Aho---------- 0.29/0.60 - 0.37/0.83 - 0.37/1.01
Marner----- 0.25/0.79 - 0.27/0.84 - 0.32/1.15
Nylander--- 0.27/.059 - 0.27-0.75 - 0.24-0.74
Pastrnak--- 0.22/0.59 - 0.29/0.51 - 0.45/0.93
Gaudreau- 1.00/1.00 - 0.30/0.80 - 0.38/0.99
Meier------- 0.09/0.18 - 0.26/0.44

Basic counting stats (in /pg context) essentially show that (Auston Matthews is a ****ing beast) Marner is extremely comparable with players like Aho and Gaudreau, and is a step above Nylander while being multiple steps below Matthews.

Going off of this we can guess at a 'fair' contract as being the average of Gaudreau and Aho's deals. That comes to 5.5@9.81% or 5.5@8. Gaudreau was signed in a past RFA contract scenario, so I think it would be fair to add up to 1 million to this aav in order to account for this (surpassing the Aho deal in he skew). Strictly value wise this is what he is worth and my highest 'fair' valuation on him of 6@9.000 seems mostly in line with this projection. I will be basing any contract signed off of this number, and will be shocked if he comes in anywhere near it from the news I have been hearing.

As CF doesn't have the ability to put images in these descriptions, I will be adding the advanced metrics down below to show how Meier is better than his counting stats show and how Mitch and Aho are very close.

As a conclusion to this; I will say that I will be able to live with a deal that surpasses his intrinsic value as long as it comes with term. I would be okay with up to 7@10.5aav based on his age and the fact that he should continue to get better. I am still irked that JT took a large discount to come here just for Mitch to put the teams financial future in jeopardy by demanding a massive overpayment and am annoyed at Shanahan and Dubas for (reportedly) giving it to him.