& you do realize that when a line is consisting of Matthews and Marner or Barzal and Komarov that the Matthews/Marner pair is going to get tougher matchups right? It's safe to say that Montreal's defence is still better than Pittsburgh's, oh and Marner had to shoot on Price and Barzal got Jarry.. forget about those factors I see.

& no. 210 minutes is not a great sample size when all of the other guys have at least double, and Matthews has triple the amount. So lets not forget that even though Marner has less than double the amount of time by himself (or triple) and he also has the 2nd least offensive zone start percentage of the 4, that he still has an xGF that's in par with the other 3. Also forgetting that Marner is used in far more critical defensive situations than the other 3 because he's more responsible in his own end than those 3. Kinda hard to only focus on creating offence when you're asked to defend leads as well. Hockey isn't all about scoring, there's other aspects to it too. But I see that you conveniently forget to mention that in any stats because it would go against you're argument. Oh well.

this will never happen

On what planet do you throw out contract comparisons knowing the cap is flat in both those years?

When Barzal'a is going to be the same or damn near similar as Marner's in 2 years, it doesn't really mean as much as you think.

In TWO years. 164 games, it absolutely matters, it’s an additional $3M in cap space a season.

For the extra $3M, I'll keep the top 5 league scorer and good defensive player.

Except that he isn’t. He finished tied for 18th in scoring so that’s not true. He doesn’t play center and where was he in the playoffs? I’ll take Barzal.

are you high? He was 4th in league scoring in the season. Wanna talk about playoffs? Well Marner had 0G 4A in 7GP and Barzal ha the same in 8GP.. so not exactly performing during the playoffs. So I'll take the guy that performed all year any day.

Yeah I’m high NHL.com defaulted to last year when I searched points so my bad. Barzal has made it out of the 1st round the last 3 years and if you want to compare the systems they play in by all means do so, and take that ZERO playoff success, I’ll take Barzal the center, the extra $3M to work with, and the playoff success.

Who you play with is more important than who you play against. Montreal has a mediocre defense, PIT has a top 10 D in the league, Boston is top 3.

Marner is a great player , but his isolated impact shows he’s not the one driving play at a high level. Barzal also has a higher xGF/60 than Marner. Marner is being paid 11 mill and for 3 straight years he folds under pressure in the playoffs. He doesn’t have that killer instinct. Barzal does. Plus he’s a center. The isles wouldn’t trade barzal for Marner if the leafs added.

Actually barzal has 1 goal.

Trade isn't realistic. Overpaying Foligno, overpaying Hamilton. Bottom 6 still sucks donkey nuts and you've made the top 6 worse. Nice!

To be fair, Marner's and Barzal's playoff numbers are pretty similar.

Yes, and one of em makes 4 mil less than the other

Team success isn't solely dependant on 1 player. Judging how far Barzal has gone compared to Marner is not a fair way to compare. By that logic you're saying Barzal is better than McDavid 😂

Yeah he just scored it.. in his 9th game. Lmao.

True but “top 5 scorers” that you want to cream over don’t absolutely freaking disappear in the playoffs not scoring any goals against the worst team that made the playoffs. But yeah you go with that. Everybody knows EDM’s problems have nothing to do with McDavid, where as you could point a monster finger at the M&M boys. But hey I get it Marner’s your boy, but I think it’s being disingenuous if you are being objective that you would take a wing over a center who makes $3M more than the center and has exactly zero goals in the last 2 playoffs. Goals and points aren’t everything (they are super important), but honestly tell me when was the last time Marner did something in the clutch in the playoffs (I honestly don’t know not being a smart ass)?

Oh so when McDavid doesn't produce in the playoffs it's okay and don't need to point a finger at him, but when Matthews and Marner don't all of a sudden it's directly on only them? Seems like a pretty lame double standard to me.

McDavid averaged a ppg, and besides Draisitl who did anything. I don’t know what’s funnier you being an apologist for Marner disappearing or suggesting that McDavid didn’t produce. But you roll with that. Instead of objectively saying hey if Marner had produced just a little TOR advances, you roll with McDavid didn’t produce when the whole world knows if anybody besides him and Draisitl contributed they might actually be good. Apologist.

Lmao. First of all, I never said that Marner didn't need to produce more for Toronto to win. That's obvious. I'm just saying that everyone who gives him the criticism on here seems to have no idea what they're talking about.

It's also funny that you mention that McDavid was a point per game player and Marner wasn't when you fail to look at it objectively. McDavid had 3 points in game 3 and 1 point in game 4. So he had all his points in 2 games. You think maybe if he shows up and produces at least a point in game 2 where they lost 1-0 in overtime, that maybe Edmonton wins that game? Marner had 2 points in game 2, 1 point in game 3, and 1 point in game 5 (shoulda been his goal after creating the whole play but Hyman barely touched it). So because Marner spreads his points out more, he's seen as more of a failure than McDavid? Again, I'm not saying that Marner produces when needed and he should've done more. But for you to sit there and defend McDavid over Marner when Marner actually had a better playoff round than McDavid (Marner was better than Matthews too) is actually hilarious. Marner needed to produce more. Yes. But he also does so much more than just offence and his series was only not acceptable offensively, but defensively he was great. And he gets criticized by people like you who can't even look at the game objectively. It's a joke 😂

It was his first shift without Leo komarov. Imagine if Marner had to play with below replacement level players? The guy couldn’t score even when he’s on a line with the rocket Richard winner. The thing with Marner is his game changes in the playoffs - he plays scared with no confidence. He’s a regular season performer

Marner> barzal by a little bit... but barzal has better contract value easily

Marner puts up more points but barzal is better at driving play and he increases the rate his team scores goals more than Marner does. Plus barzal is a center and is clutch in the playoffs.

You are the biggest apologist fact twister here. “Throw out 2 years of a contract that doesn’t matter”. You some how twist McDavid and a ppg into Marner at 0.57ppg being the same thing, but then turn around and say “I’ll take the top 5 scorer”. Bro I love that you’re passionate but you introduce and change the argument more than my teenage daughter changes channels. I’m done with this topic because you just hit it out of the park with “Marner actually had a better playoff round than McDavid”. And any day I can talk hockey is a good day so thanks for that!

You're the classic fan that just looks at points and assumes everything is okay. But when I sit there and point out that McDavid had 75% of his points in 1 game in the playoffs, you seem to overlook it because it doesn't validate your opinion. McDavid had 1 good game and then where was he the other 3? Why does he get a pass? Because he was the leading scorer in the league in the regular season? That's not fair of you to give him the pass on a bad playoffs when Marner was a top 5 scorer and Matthews was the leading goal scorer. So is it okay that Matthews didn't score enough in playoffs because he led the league in scoring in the season? By your logic so far you'd have to think you agree with that statement but no one else does. People like you rip apart Leafs players for not performing but when McDavid doesn't it's fine. That's a joke 😂. You take nothing into context and look purely at stats to validate your argument. Sorry, hockey isn't played on a piece of paper to write stats down.

I haven't changed my opinion at all. Marner didn't perform well enough. Neither did Matthews. But for you to sit there and actually say that McDavid had a better playoff because "he was a PPG and Marner was only 0.57ppg" only shows me how incredibly little you actually know about hockey 😂