What matters most is how Mitch Marner produces in the Stanley Cup playoffs. But his drop in scoring this season should put pressure on him to up his game by the post-season.
Star right winger Mitch Marner may have left the Toronto Maple Leafs this summer for the Vegas Golden Knights last summer, but it didn't change how he would ultimately be judged for his play.
The judgment in Toronto was that, regardless of his regular-season production, he and his teammates had to succeed in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
In his first regular season with the Golden Knights, Marner has been underwhelming. And given the fact that Marner is Vegas' highest-paid player, he has to own his relative lack of offensive production and step it up once the playoffs arrive, where the stats will matter most.
To be sure, when you're making $12 million annually for eight seasons the way Marner is, you need to be at least as productive as you were in your previous campaigns.
And so, while the 51 assists and 70 points that Marner has generated for the Knights in 70 games this season are more than a hill of beans, it's also nowhere close to the 75 assists and 102 points he put up for Toronto last season.
In fact, Marner is on pace for an 81-point season, which would be his lowest points total in an 82-game season since he posted 69 points in his sophomore campaign in 2017-18.
Now, if Marner and his Vegas teammates go on a playoff run, his regular-season results won't really matter. At 28, he's in his prime, and he has many chances to prove his value in the playoffs for the Golden Knights.
But if the Golden Knights go out in the first or second round and Marner can't work his magic on the scoresheet and disappears when games matter most, his relative lack of production would stick out like a sore thumb as it did in Toronto.
Of course, if the worst-case scenario happened this year and the Golden Knights missed the playoffs altogether, Marner not blowing everyone away in the stats department could be a major narrative for Vegas. The race to make the playoffs is tighter than it may seem at first glance, after all.
The Golden Knights currently sit second in the Pacific Division standings with a five-point cushion over the Los Angeles Kings, which rank one place out of a wild-card spot. Vegas is also seven points ahead of the Seattle Kraken. But the Kings have a game in hand on the Knights, while the Kraken have two games in hand on Vegas. The 4-6-0 Knights can't afford a cold streak at this point and give other teams below them a chance to sneak past them.
Marner will be overtaken by teammate Jack Eichel in the salary department when Eichel's salary rises to $13.5 million next season, but make no mistake – Marner is still going to face pressure to be a day-in, day-out major contributor on offense. And being 'only' a point-per-game player is not going to cut it for him.
The Knights average 3.14 goals-for per game, which ranks 14th in the NHL, so they'll need everyone to up their scoring power when they need it most.
Thus, you'd better believe the pressure on Marner is ratcheting up with every passing day. Vegas needs him to produce more as one of the most dynamically creative players in today's game, and they need him to step up in the post-season in a way he couldn't in Toronto.
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