'The Leafs Should Have Kept Him Happier': Mitch Marner's Revenge Tour Continues With First-Ever Conference Final Appearance

The Mitch Marner Revenge Tour is heading to the Western Conference final.

And the big, bad media, which was blamed for running the talented right winger out of Toronto, is now rubbing it in the faces of Maple Leafs fans.

"The Leafs should have kept him happier," former NHLer Chris Chelios said on the NHL on TNT following Vegas' 5-1 series-clinching win against Anaheim on Thursday. "I've said enough about the Toronto media and what they do, and the fans (are) so critical in feeding off the media, so you've got to take a step back here. You can't keep changing things."

Things might not have changed much in Toronto. But something has obviously changed with Marner.

With seven goals and a playoff-leading 18 points for the Vegas Golden Knights, the former whipping boy of the Leafs is rewriting a well-worn narrative that he cannot produce when the games really matter. But at the same time, let's not let one good post-season rewrite nine years of history.

This isn't the same Mitch Marner that spent the first nine years of his career in Toronto.

If it were, the Leafs would never have allowed him to leave.

Yes, Marner helped the Leafs qualify for the post-season in each of the nine years he spent in Toronto. But he also failed to get them out of the first round in seven of those years. Only twice did a team with Marner, Auston Matthews, William Nylander and John Tavares advance past the second round.

That's a lot of early exits for a Core Four that was making over $40 million.

And while Marner had 63 points in 70 playoff games for the Leafs, a closer at those stats will tell you that he also had no goals and six assists in 16 potential series-clinching games. In six Game 7s, Marner was also a minus-6 with no goals and two assists.

Last year, in Game 7 against Florida, he was booed off the ice following a 6-1 loss to the Panthers, where he didn't record a point and was a minus-2.

Six weeks later, Marner was traded to Vegas, where in his first season, he got his coach fired and put up one of his lowest point-per-game totals.

But in a sort of reverse Uno move, he has put himself in the early Conn Smythe Trophy consideration with the kind of post-season production that might have been possible had the Leafs been just a little bit more patient.

Or maybe, as many others have shown, Marner simply needed to leave Toronto and all its trappings to finally find success. If so, he wouldn't be the first player to use a change of scenery to unlock his potential.

Before he was labelled as one of the worst defensemen in Leafs' history, Larry Murphy had been a two-time Stanley Cup winner with the Pittsburgh Penguins. After getting traded from Toronto, he immediately won back-to-back Stanley Cups with the Detroit Red Wings.

Phil Kessel was also chased out of Toronto after failing to make the playoffs in five of six years with the Leafs. In his first two seasons in Pittsburgh, he won back-to-back Cups, scoring a combined 18 goals and 45 points in 49 games. And to prove it wasn't a fluke, he won another championship later on with Vegas.

Tyler Bozak, who was criticized for not being a top-line center, won a Cup after leaving Toronto. So did Nazem Kadri, who reporters said was too undisciplined to ever have success in the playoffs.

Perhaps, Marner will be next.

Already, he's already gone further in Vegas than he did in Toronto. And he's doing it in style, with a highlight-reel goal in Game 6 against Anaheim that some were calling "the undisputed goal of the playoffs."

"That's unbelievable; he's going to win the Conn Smythe this season," Paul Bissonette said during the first intermission of the NHL on TNT panel.

"I'm so happy for him. I feel like he's had a lot of critics," Eichel told TNT after the game. "And I feel like he's shutting a lot of people up right now. I'm super happy for him."

Well, let's see if he can continue this in the conference final, where Vegas will play the Presidents' Trophy-winning Colorado Avalanche. If he does, he'll join Jack Eichel and Mark Stone as players who shoved it to their former teams after winning a championship with the Golden Knights. 

At the same time, it won't change what Marner did in Toronto. Although, it might make some Leafs fans wish they hadn't run him out of town.

For action-packed issues, access to the entire magazine archive and a free issue, subscribe to The Hockey News at THN.com/free. Get the latest news and trending stories by subscribing to our newsletter here. And share your thoughts by commenting below the article on THN.com or creating your own post in our community forum.