Transcript of Is Mitch Marner Unfairly Scrutinized? | SDP

Tan Man, 10:38. This was said at 09:03 AM over their coffee. Why do so many players publicly go to bat for Mitch Marner? Oh, my gosh. Bless you. Bless you for asking this, so I don't have to bring it up myself. Why do so many players publicly go to bat for Mitch Marner and not the other three? All we hear lately is people supporting this guy. It could be a contract thing, but we never hear any of that for Tavares.

Yeah.

Adam Oates does it on the Kam and Strick podcast, and I go, That's strange. What's Marner's relation to Adam Oates? And then Zack Bogosian does it on the Kammon Strick podcast, and they were former teammates. And then Bogosian does it on the radio in Toronto. And then Luke Shin gets asked about it, and he goes and he talks about how he's unfairly treated. When did it It's become mandatory? When did it become a prerequisite to talk about this person? And you can't be like, Hey, I don't know about that decision to pass. I don't know about that backcheck there. I don't know. Maybe you should have taken a different route here. You can never When you ever talk about him the way you talk about any other star in this league, you have to be like, I need to start with he's a great person. Okay? He's a great person. And how dare you accuse me of saying anything otherwise. That being said, I think he might have... It's weird and unusual.

I think it's because he does take... First off, I think the reason the players are answering the question is because they're being asked. Yes. Two, he does have the most media scrutiny in this market, and it has nothing to do... People keep saying, Oh, it's because he's a hometown guy. No, it doesn't. It has nothing to do with that. Everything with this guy was squeaky, clean, most popular guy on the team until the contract His agent ruined his reputation.

I can't... Until the day his agent...

I keep going through this. When Matthew signed a deal, the next day, his agent's like, That's a bullshit contract. That literally was what he had in the Toronto Star. I'll never forget it. Then the, Oh, he could have got 14 million from Columbus and the negotiation, and that's... Exactly. And I think then you compound that with the fact that the least have had little to no playoff success. Mitch Marner has scored. If you go and look up, he scored, I think, the most amount of points in this era of any of the guys in the core four. But there have been notable times where they haven't gotten the game that they needed out of him. And I would point to the Montreal series. I think when against Boston, I just don't... With Neilhanner and Matthews out, it was really difficult. But you need your guy to be that guy. And I think- Matthews led the team in points, Willy and goals.

Both of them miss games. That's the thing. I mean, Tavares could have fucking scored, too. He was bad. He's gotten better, but yeah.

So that's the thing. I think that there's a lot of that. I think when you're making, this is the deal, man. If Mitch goes in and he signs for nine and a half, no one says a thing about that contract. In fact, he is still the most popular player on the team.

When did he not get what he wanted? When you pushed- At what point in the process did he not get exactly what he wanted?

When you push like that and the team doesn't succeed, and then the cap doesn't go up, and then they're not able to augment the team because of the salaries, because the cap was supposed to go up. You can't, quote, unquote, deemphasize the core four for half a decade. This is what happens.

That's why- Most of the noise around Marner doesn't come from the media, and it doesn't come from him either.

No, it comes from his people. The people around him have done him no favors.

The moment they shut the fuck up. Please shut the fuck up. I think he might actually have a good time as a leave.

Recently, they have. Good.

Wait until talks go Well, we'll see.

We'll see.

God, he's so good. Yeah. He's so damn good and a great person. Listen, if the way he's been this season continues into the play, Yeah. What are we doing? He is a player who more than anyone else, I just heavily scrutinize who is telling me the information, and I think about why I'm being told this information and where I'm getting it from. Thank you for asking that question. I think you're asking the right ones.

From Montreal fan, this is clearly about Lane Hudson, so just keep that in... It's from Fran Mo.

My favorite defenseman only has one goal.

Do you think in the next 10 to even 20 years, a defenseman will win the heart trophy, especially in today's high scoring NHL? What does it take for a defenseman to win that trophy?

I No, I think it's possible. I mean, Kael Mccar disappointed a little bit after the avalanche won the Cup. People were talking about Kael, he could win the heart.

Yeah. I think he still could.

I think he still could, too. I mean, it's difficult in a world where... How many defensemen won the heart during Wayne Gretsky's career? I think the answer is zero. It's really, really hard. The dudes who score all the goals and all the points will always get an unfair advantage, but guys break through. So I guess the question might be, or my answer might be, Yes, a defenseman is going to win the Norris. No, it's not going to happen while Connor McDavid lives and breathes in this league. Got it.

Okay. I think that's fair.

Who was the last to do it?

It was Chris Pronger. Chris Pronger, I think. Chris Pronger in In '99, 2000. Last defenseman to win the Norris Trophy. Cary Price is the last non-forward to win it. Nikita Kutjarav, last non-center to win the award. Wow. Back in '18, '19.

There you go. Jeez. Okay.

Outliers always happen. We see in history through sports, it'll go through a cycle where one guy has an unbelievable season and there's a down year from the forward crop and he gets it.

When will a forward win the heart trophy again? That'll be the question that we ask.

When will a forward win a Norse trophy again?

When is it going to happen?

All right. Next up, DiFulio. What were the potential knee injuries per 60 from the bubble soccer at the Kingston Frontinax game?

Oh, yeah. Everyone thinks that was hard on the knees. I didn't fall on my knees once. Did you?

Falling is actually... It makes it really easy. The part is the running because you just keep slipping. But when you fall, it's a very comfy fall.

You cannot believe Fathom understand how tiring that is. Oh, man. Is it exhausting?

Dude, you go for a run and you go, Okay, I don't know. And then your body warms up and you're like, I can do it. Then you slowly, over time, feel yourself lose energy a little bit. Bubble soccer or bubble sumo, whatever we were doing. Fun, fun, fun, fun, fun. I am a dead person.

It's like sprinting. You're immediately just going full bore and you just eventually run out of energy. It was so tiring.

I got my one real good run at Jessie from behind. Just not clean at all. And about 30 seconds after that, I was finished. Yeah.

And this year, it was worse than last year because last year we played like you're actually trying to kick a ball into the goal. This year was just sumo, which just knocked people out of the circle. So it was just all strength, all running. It was awful.

And Jesse, you had a harder time this year because...

Last Last year, I wore boots. They gave me extra traction on the ice. It was actually a sneaky advantage. This year, I have a regular running shoes and it was awful.

Did you notice your feet getting cold, too? Because the ice freezes your heels a little bit. My feet got instantly cold, and I'm never cold.

I was not cold.

It was frigging hot.

Just my feet, though. That's why I noticed it, right?

Because you're hot, motherfucker. No, I was sweating too much to be cold.

I enjoyed it. It was fun. Steve, next question..