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2025-2026 Off Season Thread - The Rehappening

I honestly don’t even believe that he’ll take the best offer he receives and go back to the Leafs with it. Both because he wants to leave and because I think people overrate the hell out of the importance of that 8th year.

I think he’ll either happily take the biggest 7 year-deal another team offers him. Or he might take the biggest AAV he can get on a four or five year deal in the hopes he can cash in again when he’s 32 and get someone to hand him a gargantuan 7-8 year deal at that point.
 
Because it’s too crazy to think this guy got his wish, has been here with all his buddies for almost a decade, could reach the top of all time lists, has a great team that he could help win it, made an absolute fortune already, and has a young family and would just uproot and leave it all behind.
Because maybe all those things are just shit that you, as a fan, cling to as being important so you think they should also be important to Mitch. Clearly, the only thing that is important to Mitch is money and a lifestyle free from criticism or aggravation. He'd rather be a well-paid member of the Vegas Golden Knights than be the Leafs' all-time scorer who's career will nonetheless be viewed as blemished by the fact that he never won the Cup.

Nothing Mitch can do at this point, other than lead the Leafs to a championship (which even he knows he can't do) could ever rehabilitate his reputation among Leafs fans. Scoring a lot of goals won't change the math. Why do you think Ted Williams, despite all his success, had a love-hate relationship with Red Sox fans? Because, despite everything he accomplished he could never get the Sox a title. The fact that he was abrasive with the media in a similar fashion to Marner was just the cherry on the shit sundae that made him easier to nit-pick.

Marner isnt going to lead any team to anything. If he signs with a good team that knows what it's doing, he might be a supporting cast member of a Cup winning team. But he's only going to accumulate useless goals and assists in Toronto. Hes never winning anything real and he is not a leader of any kind.

He never needed the Leafs and now the Leafs have finally figured out that they no longer need him and, in fact, can't keep him if they have any hope of going further in the playoffs. He is toxic now. A cancer.

Letting him walk is good for both parties.
 
I honestly don’t even believe that he’ll take the best offer he receives and go back to the Leafs with it. Both because he wants to leave and because I think people overrate the hell out of the importance of that 8th year.

I think he’ll either happily take the biggest 7 year-deal another team offers him. Or he might take the biggest AAV he can get on a four or five year deal in the hopes he can cash in again when he’s 32 and get someone to hand him a gargantuan 7-8 year deal at that point.
HIs endorsements which he gets being a Leaf are a bigger deal than an 8th year
 
Marner couldn't wipe the sweat from Keon's nutsack.
Exactly! I dont get why so many Leafs fans seem to believe that Matthews or Marner are the best Leaf of all time just because they pot a lot of goals. The fact of the matter is they never won shit. Keon won 4 Cups. No Leaf has ever won 5 (unless they got traded, like Frank Mahovlich) Keon is the best Leaf who ever lived. Better than Sittler, Sundin, Gilmour, and definitely better than the sad sack core 4 who won a grand total of 2 playoff rounds in a decade.

It's probably recency bias more than anything else because most people under 50 never saw him play, but Keon is the best ever Leaf. I dont give a shit what the numbers say. If Keon in his prime had a 3-1 series lead on the Habs it would have ended in 5 games. Keon would have seen to it personally, as he did in 1964 when, in an elimination game, he scored a hat trick against the Habs in the seni-finals to end it.

A punk like Marner would have to aspire to be good enough to gently cup Keon's ball sack, let alone be permitted to lick it.
 
Exactly! I dont get why so many Leafs fans seem to believe that Matthews or Marner are the best Leaf of all time just because they pot a lot of goals. The fact of the matter is they never won shit. Keon won 4 Cups. No Leaf has ever won 5 (unless they got traded, like Frank Mahovlich) Keon is the best Leaf who ever lived. Better than Sittler, Sundin, Gilmour, and definitely better than the sad sack core 4 who won a grand total of 2 playoff rounds in a decade.

It's probably recency bias more than anything else because most people under 50 never saw him play, but Keon is the best ever Leaf. I dont give a shit what the numbers say. If Keon in his prime had a 3-1 series lead on the Habs it would have ended in 5 games. Keon would have seen to it personally, as he did in 1964 when, in an elimination game, he scored a hat trick against the Habs in the seni-finals to end it.

A punk like Marner would have to aspire to be good enough to gently cup Keon's ball sack, let alone be permitted to lick it.
3 Leafs won 5 cups as Leafs.

Teeder Kennedy
Turk Broda
Don Metz
 
Matthews is likely to end up the best Leaf of all time. Comparing what he does in a 32 team league to what someone else did in a 6 team league is fucking dumb.

The NHL didn't really exist until goaltending was invented in 1989.
 
Matthews is likely to end up the best Leaf of all time. Comparing what he does in a 32 team league to what someone else did in a 6 team league is fucking dumb.

The NHL didn't really exist until goaltending was invented in 1989.
Jacques Plante, Terry Sawchuck, Turk Broda, Bernie Parent, Gerry Cheevers, Tony Esposito, Ken Dryden, Glenn Hall all say hi!
 
Jacques Plante, Terry Sawchuck, Turk Broda, Bernie Parent, Gerry Cheevers, Tony Esposito, Ken Dryden, Glenn Hall all say hi!

Not remotely the same position as it is today. It's almost embarassing watching career goal highlight reels from goal scorers of that era.

For all intents and purposes, Patrick Roy invented goaltending. Call it modern goaltending if you insist, but it's just true.
 
Not remotely the same position as it is today. It's almost embarassing watching career goal highlight reels from goal scorers of that era.

For all intents and purposes, Patrick Roy invented goaltending. Call it modern goaltending if you insist, but it's just true.
Those goalies all wore mini equipment compared to the picnic tables they wear now.

The best players would be the best players in any era.
 
Those goalies all wore mini equipment compared to the picnic tables they wear now.
14 goalies a year would die if they faced today's shooters in yesterday's equipment. But this isn't the 00's, they've done a good job downsizing the JS Giguere's of the world.

There's nothing crazy about the equipment they wear anymore, goalies are just pretty huge now.

in 70-71, of the top 10 in SV%, 1 was taller than 6'2, and 9 were 6'0 or shorter.
in 89-90, of the top 10 in SV%, 1 was taller than 6'2, but only 5 were 6'0 or shorter.

in 24-25 of the top 10 in SV%, 8 were taller than 6'2 and only 1 was shorter than 6'2, none were under 6'0. 8 of the 10 are 6'4 or taller and it stays ridiculous in the next 10 as well. Only 1 shorter than 6'2 (Shesty at 6'1) with 4 of the 10 being 6'4 or taller.

Average goalie in 70-71 was 5'10-5'11, 6'0 in 89-90, 6'4 today.
 
I agree that athletes are getting bigger and faster, but the best players would still be the best players in any era.

For most positions I would agree, hard disagree in net. It's just not the same position anymore. The best 5'11 goalie from the 60's wouldn't get out of junior today.
 
For most positions I would agree, hard disagree in net. It's just not the same position anymore. The best 5'11 goalie from the 60's wouldn't get out of junior today.
Milt Dunnell, who you should read if you get the chance, lived and wrote into his early 100's. If there is a Canadian Journalism Mount Rushmore, he would be on it. (Angelo Dundee wouldn't start any Mohammed Ali press conference until Milt had arrived)

He died in 2008.

When asked who was the best Leaf goalie of all time, he didn't hesitate to say "Turk Broda".
Not who was the best of his era, but who was the best period.

There were lots of fantastic goalies, who would still be fantastic today.

Imagine being Glenn Hall? He had to face Bobby Hull in practice everyday shooting at him at 100 miles per hour without a mask.
No wonder he would have to stop every game to go to the dressing room to throw up.
 
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