Marner's Invisible? You're Just Not Looking Hard Enough

Mitch Marner woke up on the morning of Game 3 to see his photo-shopped body — or what remained of it — splashed across the front page of the Toronto Sun with the headline: "The Invisible Leaf."

Other media outlets were slightly less critical.

"When — and how — will Mitch Marner join the Toronto Maple Leafs' fight?" asked Daily Faceoff.

"Maple Leafs' Mitch Marner searches for his moment, facing huge expectations" said a story in The Athletic.

"A standout performance during this week's homestand, and Marner's critics go quiet," suggested Sportsnet's Luke Fox. "More doughnuts on the stat sheet, however, and the volume gets cranked."

It wasn't just his lack of offense that is generating headlines. Some referenced Marner's underlying statistics, such as his shot-attempt share (43.5 percent) when on the ice, or shared a clip of him avoiding a hit when "battling" for a puck.

This is all somewhat fair.

After all, Marner has zero points in two games against the Boston Bruins. For someone with a 10.93-million cap hit — top-10 in the league — that's not good enough. And if this continues for the rest of the series, he deserves to be criticized.

However, the series isn't over. The Leafs have played two games against the Bruins. And they are tied 1-1 in the best-of-seven series, with Game 3 in Toronto on Wednesday.

There is still plenty of time for Marner to "join the fight", to have "his moment" and to reappear for the Leafs.

If you look closely, you'll actually see that he never disappeared at all.

This narrative, where Marner supposedly goes missing when the stakes are raised and the games get tighter and tougher, is not factually correct. In 52 career playoff games, Marner has 47 points — the exact same that Auston Matthews has. Last year, Marner led the Leafs with 14 points in 11 games.

Since his rookie season, Marner is tied for 34th overall in total playoff points. That's more than Artemi Panarin, Matthew Tkachuk and Aleksander Barkov have scored. And that's while playing on a team that has one playoff win in eight years.

"I think we're getting ahead of ourselves when we're talking about reputation and legacy," analyst Mike Johnson told TSN's Overdrive. "He's one of the greatest already players in the history of the Toronto Maple Leafs. He's one of the best right wingers in the NHL. 

"Yes, he had a very difficult second-round series against last year Florida. No question. He also had 14 points in in 11 games. He's basically a point per game player in the playoffs in his career. So for all the talk of his struggles, he has still produced fairly nicely in the playoffs even in the losses."

Not to make excuses, but the 26-year-old winger is coming off a recent high-ankle sprain that sidelined him for four weeks about a month ago. He's also playing on a line with John Tavares and Matthew Knies, which is both a new role and one where Marner has to do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to creating offense — and in helping to shut down Boston's top line.

"Those guys are taking on some tough responsibility playing against (David) Pastrnak and have done a really good job of it," Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe told reporters. "Each line's not going to roll each night offensively. Their time will come in the series."

In other words, let's see what he does for the rest of the series.

Can Marner be better? Sure. He's paid to produce and put up points. But you could say the same thing about Washington's Alex Ovechkin, who is also searching for his first goal in a first-round series against the New York Rangers. Or Vancouver's Elias Pettersson, who is also without a point in two games against the Nashville Predators.

Again, it's been two games. Just two.

A year ago, Matthews was held without a goal in the first two games against Tampa Bay. But then exploded with five goals in the following four games. Maybe Marner, who could get some help on Wednesday if William Nylander returns to the lineup, will come up big in Game 3.

Or maybe, he'll save his big moment for Game 4.

Either way, with the series tied 1-1, it's far too early to hit the panic button.