And would rank 120th all time in playoff points per game if he qualified.
Marner: 0.78 ppg in playoffs.
Backstrom: 0.81 ppg in playoffs.

marner has a lot smaller sample size than backstrom.

It's weird to say "small sample size", 5 minutes after saying "106th in playoff scoring."

I think some people just hate nice things. To be completely fair, it happens in every fan base, the difference is just that groups like the Leafs and Habs dwarf the fan bases of most other teams on here, so the Brian Burke/Don Cherry/TSN panel lovers are just far more vocal than everyone else.

With Marner, I think Marner gets a lot of flack because of the way the contract negotiations went (Same with Nylander, who, IMO is absolutely excellent, and also worth every penny). The immediate comparison is always with the Bruins-"Why do they have Pasta, Bergeron and Marchand for $19 mil, when we have Matthews, Marner and Nylander for $28ish?". Or, with a team in an income tax-less state. The salary cap really ruined a lot of fans, and turned us from hockey fans into cap analysts. Nobody should have to care about what a player makes-It's funny, but I always think back to 1997, when Joe Sakic made $17 (17!!!!) million dollars. Nobody said he wasn't worth it when he scored at below a point per game pace that year for the first time since his rookie year, because he was absolutely worth it.

17 million in 1999?!? thats insane i had no idea that he was making that much money back then. Yeah i remember people HATING Nylander bc he finally signed that deal then had a down year lol. luckily management is smarter than some fans bc they wanted to move him for Parayko. i wasnt really high on Nylander but hes impressed me the last 2 years. imo their best player last playoffs

it was just a big payout year because of the offersheet. sakic made $3m the year before and $2m the year after. kind of similar to how marner made $16m in 2019-20.

it baffles me that some "fans" HATED Marner but absolutely love Matthews. imo Marner and MAtthews are equal talents but they are treated WAY different but not my pig not my farm

I'm even more amazed that so many Leaf fans, think Mikheyev, Engvall, Dermot and Holl who are good value at total 5.3m are the ones blame for the Leafs failures. And Kerfoot who stepped up last playoff and was the Leafs 2nd best forward is also seen as an overpriced player. Matthews, Marner (not so much this year) and Reilly are shielded from criticism.