Mitch Marner, born and raised Canadian, performed his first 9 NHL seasons together with his dream workforce, the Toronto Maple Leafs. As of 2025’s draft and commerce season, he’s now a Vegas Golden Knight again within the quantity he wore as a London Knight all these years in the past, #93.
Regardless of being homegrown, Leafs Nation seemingly at all times took difficulty with no matter efficiency Marner gave on any given sport evening. Sadly, this doesn’t shock me. Being a Torontonian myself, I perceive higher than most that the Toronto Maple Leafs should not an NHL hockey workforce, least of all a Stanley Cup profitable workforce. Each Leafs fan will moan concerning the curse that our workforce has not gained a Cup since 1967.
What each fan appears to be high-quality ignoring is the basis of this difficulty: the Leafs have by no means been a Stanley Cup contender. This workforce has by no means been constructed to resist the playoffs.
Some older Leafs followers are jaded. They watch each sport they will, however they don’t have any expectations that this 12 months might be totally different. Each season brings in new followers, and the longer they stick across the extra hope bleeds from them. The Leafs should not going to win a Stanley Cup. Not now, possibly not ever.
However why?
Check out the workforce we had for the 2024-25 season. Issues began as they normally did; rocky. Some gamers, like Max Pacioretty, missed each sport between February to the start of the playoffs. Some gamers, like Auston Matthews, have been enjoying the entire time with minor accidents. Superstars like William Nylander pale into the background, and people within the background got a recent coat of paint and labelled the brand new superstars.
The problem isn’t the gamers. It isn’t the top coach, it isn’t the workforce supervisor. It isn’t even the followers, though that one I may very well be satisfied in any other case. The problem with the Toronto Maple Leafs is that they don’t seem to be a NHL hockey workforce. They’re a enterprise.
Have you ever ever been to a Leafs sport at Scotiabank Area in downtown Toronto? I’ve. A poutine is $14 earlier than tax, a bottle of water possibly round $8. A jersey within the enviornment retailer will run you round $300 simply. In fact, you don’t want to purchase something whereas at a sport. These are all non-obligatory extra costs somebody may pay. The most affordable seats I’ve sat in have been all the best way on the high of the sector with solely a wall behind me, and people two seats value $156.
If the MLSE spent much less time discovering new methods to squeeze each final nickel from their followers and extra time investing into their enterprise, they wouldn’t need to get inventive with new moneymaking methods.
Other than being a season ticket holder, it takes a particular form of individual to buy tickets to a Leafs residence sport. I.e., somebody wealthy. Somebody with disposable earnings and the will to flaunt or impress another person. No regular fan can purchase tickets to a couple of Leafs sport. It’s simply not financially attainable on this economic system.
The seats crammed within the gold and platinum sections in Scotiabank Area belong to people who find themselves making an attempt to shmooze, who’re impressing a woman on their first date, who have been gifted the tickets for his or her birthday. In reality, most of the time these seats are bought by companies and companies for that objective. The true Leafs Nation followers should not within the enviornment. They’re standing outdoors in Maple Leafs Sq. craning their necks in the direction of the huge display, all part of a large watchparty.
Now, this doesn’t essentially imply that the Leafs aren’t a critical workforce. It may very well be that Scotiabank Area is setting all these costs to extend the revenue they’ll get from gross sales. Besides, Mitch Marner. Drafted fourth total by Toronto in 2015, he zapped life into the workforce and followers alike. Everybody was anticipating nice issues from Markham-born Mitch Marner.
Mitch Marner will not be a famous person. He shouldn’t be paid like a famous person. He shouldn’t be considered as a famous person. Don’t get me improper, Marner is an efficient participant. He’s a strong, NHL degree hockey participant. However he’s not Nylander. He’s not Crosby. He’s not Ovechkin. Marner is an efficient, nicely rounded hockey participant, and extremely overhyped.
Because the seasons continued and Marner improved, and the folks representing him advocated for him to be paid increasingly, followers began to query why. Why was Marner being paid a lot when he wasn’t enjoying on the degree that got here with that wage? What made Marner so particular? His rising wage meant much less for others on the identical workforce, and fewer that may very well be supplied to free brokers, gamers doubtlessly a commerce. And so Leafs Nation did what they do finest: criticise, complain, and hate. Folks took it so far as blaming Marner himself, saying that if he needed the large bucks then he ought to play like he deserved the large bucks. However wasn’t it the followers who referred to as him a famous person first? And pressured him when he didn’t instantly reside as much as these expectations?
And therein lies the difficulty with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Their picture. Toronto is so involved with their look, how good their hair and make-up appears, how smooth their pre-game outfit is, that they’ve forgotten to keep up what’s beneath the pores and skin.
Gamers like Marner are integral to forming a workforce able to attempt profitable the Stanley Cup. Marner did deliver one thing new and wanted to the Toronto Maple Leafs, it simply wasn’t what everybody else claimed. Marner doesn’t should be the brand new famous person face of the workforce to be an necessary addition. Drafting Mitch Marner was not a mistake, it was truly a very good choice for the workforce. He slot in nicely with the gamers, each supported and made his personal strikes on the ice, and cherished each second being a Toronto Maple Leaf.
However in fact, being a Leaf isn’t nearly enjoying hockey, as a result of why wouldn’t it be? He needed to be good, on and off the ice. He needed to smile and wave and autograph on the whims of the followers. He needed to skate laborious, rating extra and help higher than some other participant on his workforce. He needed to spend each second residing and respiratory hockey, even in his private time. He couldn’t go {golfing} together with his associates with out somebody saying he ought to swap professions since he clearly doesn’t care about hockey.
Nothing Marner did was ever adequate for Leafs Nation. Not simply Marner. Everybody.
If you need one thing to alter it’s important to present why change can be higher, extra useful. For Mitch Marner, meaning agreeing to a sign-and-trade with the Vegas Golden Knights.
If Leafs Nation needs to help their favorite workforce, they should goal Scotiabank Area and the Toronto Maple Leafs administration. Make the sector extra accessible, each bodily and financially. Query administration’s choices on signing, buying and selling and drafting gamers. Query the selections Craig Berube makes concerning the strains and the performs the gamers make. Discover different choices out there. Name them out.
If the Toronto Maple Leafs need to hoist the Stanley Cup, have their names etched on that trophy, have their workforce immortalised, they should play prefer it. They should construct a workforce for extra than simply the common season. This workforce must spend the common season constructing performs and methods they make use of throughout playoffs that set them aside from each different workforce, making them the clear uncontested winner.
You possibly can’t win the Stanley Cup with out enjoying for it. It’s time to play. Are you prepared, Toronto?
Leafs Nation: you’re the poisonous associate on this relationship.
