Quoting: Theozler
You can’t just magically make cap room appear. So while teams would love marner , is it worth destroying your depth for him?
As for the wingers, few arguments: all three of those wingers won hart trophies so they are a level above marner. Also let’s look at the team around them: hawks, really the only true exception so I won’t go over them Capitals, ovechkin best player but they never got over the hump until they had two top centers, prior to that they were out round 2 or less every year. Tampa: one, vas is their best player, he just is. And they had comparable stars at c and d. So really outside of Chicago you needed the c and/or d to win the cups. Pens: malkin Crosby, wings: datsyuk, zetterberg, lidstrom. Bruins: Bergeron, krejci, chara, Thomas. Kings:kopitar, doughty, quick. I mean we can go back to the 50s, there are teams that have won with maybe a very good w, but the almost always had better or comparable stars at c,d, and g. But there’s many examples where they had clear stars at the other three positions and the w was maybe their 5th best player.
Firstly, I was mostly making a point about how wingers absolutely can be the top stars on teams. It wasn't necessarily to say Marner specifically is able to be the top star of a cup winning team, although I do think he is personally.
Ovi is the only one who won a Hart earlier in his Career than Marner is currently. Kane won his at 27 and Kucherov at 25, meanwhile Marner is 25 and is definately within the realm of winning a Hart if the stars aline (one thing going against him is that Marner success will usually equal Matthews success). I wouldnt say that Marner is a tier below those guys just because he hasnt won a Hart. FYI, he has averaged 102 points per 82 games since his ELC. Kane averaged
In terms of the team around them, it doesnt matter what position the best player is since you need a well rounded team to win in the NHL. You show me a good cup winning team and I will show you a good C and W pairing. Mackinnon/Raantanen, Stamkos/Kucherov, Backstrom/Ovi, even Toews/Kane.. The only exception I can think of is Crosby tbh.
I think something that I should say as well is that sometimes a high end winger will make a good center look great. A final point I will make too, is that I purposely left out that defense isnt important. Defense is by far the most important thing in winning cups imo. I think this can be seen by the Cs you listed that didnt really have elite wingers. Datsyuk/Zetterberg, Crosby, Bergeron, O'Reilly.. They are all defensive centers. The teams that did have elite wingers also had elite defensmen to compensate. Kucherov/Hedman, Kane/Keith, Ovi/Carlson to an extent..
When I say that any team would make room for Marner, he is a top 10 player in the league so most teams getting him would be sending back their best player. No need to make cap room. In hindsight, I will revise my statment, since after thinking about it Edmonton is probably the only team that would not be interested in a Marner trade. So 30/31 teams would be happy to trade for Marner if he were available.