The Revisiting Series: Was the Mitch Marner contract worth it?

The Mitch Marner era with the Toronto Maple Leafs has been… interesting. The Leafs got great value out of Marner’s ELC as they watched him pot 157 assists and 224 points in 241 games. He capped the three years off by scoring 94 points in 82 games in a contract year.

Surely, nothing crazy would happen and there wouldn’t be a media circus that followed him, his dad, Kyle Dubas, the team, NHL insiders and the entirety of Leafs Twitter for an entire offseason that caused undeniably large amounts of tension between basically every party involved, right?

Wrong.

But we all know how that went and that’s not the point of this article. What, instead, we’re getting at is whether or not his contract could be considered worth it one hockey shortened season in.

After the summer debacle that was, Marner ended up signing a deal with the Leafs that would see him get paid an AAV of $10.893-million over six seasons.

First off, it’s important to start by looking at the raw numbers. In 59 games this year, Marner scored 16 goals and 51 assists in 59 games. 10 goals and 32 assists came at even-strength.

Pacing it over a full, 82-game season, he would’ve scored 22 goals 71 assists for a total of 93 points. Marner, who missed 11 games this year with a high ankle sprain, was keeping pace with his point total from his pre-big-deal-signing season.

According to Micah Blake McCurdy’s isolated impact charts, Marner was a great contributor on both ends of the ice this season. He provided offence at a six percent better rate than the league average and another 13 percent better defence than the league average. His heatmaps are strong in on the power-play and are solid on the penalty kill in limited time. Pretty solid numbers that show him to be a very effective player.

And analytically, his numbers support all the above. Marner posted a 54.13 GF%, a 56.61 xGF% and a 52.50 CF% with a PDO clocking in at 100.7. This season he’s played the most minutes alongside Auston Matthews and Zach Hyman, and the trio have been very productive at even-strength. The trio have posted a 62.96 GF%, a 60.51 xGF%, and a 52.59 CF%. Their PDO clocks in at 104.5 in thanks to an above-average 14.72 on-ice sh%.

All in all, Marner has stepped up and produced in the first year of his new contract. He’s as strong of an offensive threat as ever, and is still only 22-years-old. Marner is far from hitting his stride as an NHL’er, and that’s got to be good news to the fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

What say you, Nation?

On Twitter: @zjlaing