Quoting: Ansabch12
They talk about him cause this isn't the first time he disappeared in the playoffs, it isn't a double standard at this point its valid criticism. It is absolutely his and Matthews fault that they lost, you had depth scoring from players like Spezza, Nylander scored 8 pts in 7 games, Morgan Rielly had an amazing series, the defence was very good, and Jack Campbell had better stats than Carey Price. What could you possibly blame aside from the top 2 players who didn't show up.
This doesn't take Matthews off the hook either he looked and play awful in that series, but he had his chances and played well defensively you could watch him hustling out there. Marner however was out taking stupid penalties, turning pucks over, missing passes, and he looked visibly shaken.
Also no, Marner isn't the easiest to trade, he is by far the hardest to trade because no one can afford to eat that much money in a flat cap situation and at the same time give you a return that is equal value, it just isn't happening and it isn't happening in Calgary for sure.
It's funny that you mention Matthews being good defensively when Marner was actually better defensively and played on the PK the entire series. One that didn't allow a PP goal until game 6 but that seems to fly under the radar too.
I'm not taking the blame off Marner or Matthews I'm just saying that Marner is the easy target here. Matthews was worse and after leading the league in goals, it's on him to be better. He wasn't. More of this falls on Matthews shoulders than Marner's (again not saying Marner isn't to blame at all). & Matthews also didn't really show up last year in the play in either, aside from an OT goal that was basically a gimme. & no ones putting most of the blame on him.
& if you look at it on context, Marner is by far the easiest player to move. Matthews is not being moved, you don't trade a generational goal scorer and expect to be better. Tavares isn't being moved, it's his say if hw wanted to be. Nylander isn't being moved because he was just your best forward in the playoffs, trading him makes no sense. So that leaves Marner as the easiest. & anyone saying that he isn't easy to move just doesn't know what they're talking about. There's tons of teams that can fit his cap, and the actual money Marner is owed drastically decreases now as most of it was paid in signing bonuses. There are tons of owners and GM's who would love to have a player with a higher cap hit but pay them less actual money as they hit the cap floor but don't have to dish out as much from their pockets. Oh and on top of that they're getting a top 5 scorer in the league. If Marner was available, there'd be a ton of suitors. I'm actually more impressed with management coming out and saying they're not trading them. Trading one of them is the easy answer. Develop them and create them to be better hockey players is the hard one but the right one.