Lol. Marner can't win a faceoff.

I think he would pick up this skill very quickly if he was moved to centre ice where he belongs as he is such a natural playmaker.

They tried to get Spezza to train him but he only won 1 draw in a 2 hour session of doing draws.

That does not sound good. Marner would be smart and get Bo Horvat to work with him in the summer on how to win faceoffs. Bo would probably help Marner out as they both played on the London Knights together.

Marner had tremendous success playing center ice for the London Knights and played with Domi and Divorak and then Thakuch and Divorak so have no doubt he could transition to centre in the NHL. Mark Hunter made a wise selection when he picked Marner for the Leafs in the NHL draft.

Marner has never played center at aby significant level of hockey and if you think hes suddenly going to pick it up in the nhl, you are fooling yourself.

I thought he played centre ice his entire junior career with the London Knights. The Leafs converted Red Kelly from defence with the Detroit Red Wings to centre ice when he joined the Leafs in the 1960's and he went on to win 4 Stanley Cups playing centre ice for the Leafs so do think it is possible that Marner could play centre.

On behalf of NHL fans around the world. Shut the **** up.

He didn't. He played c very sparingly and when he did he still played like a winger after the faceoff.
Mitch marner is not red Kelly, and if mitch had shown any inclination to being able to play c at an nhl level they would have tried him there, he cant. Hes a great winger, but he doesnt have the chops to be a c

Babcock did not try him at centre because Marner was not strong enough to play the position when he first entered the NHL. However, lots of younger forwards who played centre in junior are converted back to centre after a few years in the NHL and Marner may be one of these players even though you may disagree. You have to also realize that Babcock was extremely stuck in his ways and did not want to experiment with any of his players.

There was a period of time in 2015 when he talked about playing centre and working on his faceoffs...... He hasn't picked it up in 5 years.

Also. Whats wrong with playmaking wingers?

I have no problem with a playmaking winger. However, I personally think both Marner and Nylander would also be better defensively and may be better playmakers than Tavares and Matthews at playing centre ice.

I know that Nylander and Marner are better skaters than Tavares and Matthews and both have played centre ice so I really would like to see how they do if given a chance. Nylander was dominent playing for Sweden at centre ice in world championships a couple of years ago.

Or he just isnt a center. Hes not good defensively, and out of the big 4 he is the worst defensively, matthews has made incredible strides to round out his game this season and is actually rating pretty well in defensive metrics. Marner ia not

Jared

I am going to have to agree to disagree with you on Marner being the worst defensively of the Big 4 Leaf forwards. If this is true, why is Marner the only Big 4 Leaf forward who also plays on th penalty kill for the team?

Problem solved. Stanley Cup, here come the Toronto Maple Leafs and Starting Goalie Jack Campbell. The bruins just pooped their pants, Bergeron retired, Pastrnak went back to Czech, the entire Canes roster has retired from hockey and Gary Bettman resigned from his position all because no one can stand a team being this good in the league.

You and I both know that the Leafs time to win a cup has not yet arrived but it is surely comming as some of the other strong teams start to decline and the Leafs core reaches their prime years in the NHL. Could not have agreed with you more and good to finally have an objective comment on CapFriendly.

Because penalty killing is very very different than actua 5v5 defence

Not really as it is actually harder to play defensively on the penality kill than 5v5. The other question I have for you is why did Babcock match up Marner and Tavares against Boston's big line last year in the playoffs? The reason was that Marner was very strong defensively in shutting down Marchmant.

Thats not true at all. Penalty killing a skill, defensive 5v5 is a different skill. Same way power play scoring is a different thing than even strength scoring.
You can be good at one or the other or both.
Oh and babcock matched them because of tavares. And matthews wasn't good defensively last year, as i stated above he has improved leaps and bounds while marner seems to have regressed