TLN fan survey Part 1: The offseason so far and a whole lot of Marner

First off, a big thank you to everyone who participated in last week’s survey. Definitely a better than expected number of responses and one that definitely sheds some light on the pulse of Leafs fans, at least those reading TLN, and once again shows the huge divide in how fans view the team.

We’ll get right into it with the first question; how would you rate the Leafs offseason so far?

I’m not sure how many teams can see their top scorer walk in free agency and still receive this level of support for offseason moves, but if nothing this captures the desire for change in the organization and the excitement to see the team finally go through with it. The feelings on the individual moves are in the second question but as you’ll see from those scores there is primarily support for what has been done or at worst indifference. This likely means that if further changes are addressed and the gap of not having Mitch Marner in the lineup is closed a little further, Brad Treliving and Co. will see their standing amongst Leafs fans improve (depending on the move, but as will be seen below, true believers will always outnumber the vocal skeptics.)

If you are strictly looking at love it and hate it, the most balanced responses come from the Leafs depth signings, drafting, Pezzetta signing, and decision on Pontus Holmberg, of course these were met with a healthy dose of meh that can be interpreted in this regard as probably not caring a whole lot.

The divide being there on all things Marner isn’t much of a surprise either, nor is the high level of love for the Tavares contract, the Knies contract, and the Reaves trade. The Dakota Joshua trade was new and exciting at the time of this survey and as pessimistic as Leafs fans can be in season, there certainly seems to be a high level of optimism in the offseason.

Further thoughts on Mitch Marner…

The third question gave five options to capture your feelings on the Mitch Marner situation. In a perfect world it would have been essay format and the summary of your feelings will be rolled up best represent your complex feelings on the matter. Given that open answers in polls and surveys require more than the few moments I’m committing to this on my lunch breaks, you get five questions and here’s the summary of responses:

The Leafs should have parted ways prior to his no movement clause	48.2%
It was the player’s decision so it is what it is	18.1%
Good riddance, playoff Marner is Vegas’ problem now	15.7%
The Leafs should have done more to bring him back	13.3%
I need to see the training camp roster before I know how I’ll feel	4.8%

Honestly, putting that first option out there might have made this too easy and whether you felt it at the time or it came in hindsight, knowing that Marner had Vegas in mind for a while, now knowing the Leafs and Marner wouldn’t make anything of the those two playoff opportunities, and knowing that trades were blocked make it a pretty safe answer.

The remaining answers are where it gets interesting and the fact that the future Leafs lineup wasn’t more of a component to feelings could capture that this was always more about feelings on the player than what is best for the Leafs.

What player do you wish the Maple Leafs had targeted?

The wording on this question was to focus on players that had changed team but certainly responses that included players that re-signed are valid as well and in my attempt to avoid a “who should the Leafs have traded for/signed question that would result in responses on every player in the league, this might have resulted in some different responses.

That said, I stand by it and this exercise is more about seeing what archetype of player the Leafs should be looking for rather than a specific individual.

The top five players listed were: Andrew Mangiapane, Noah Dobson, Mason Marchment, Nikolaj Ehlers, and Brandon Tanev

Presumably the reasoning is very different for each of these players, Mangiapane was an affordable top six forward that would be an easy fit, Mason Marchment didn’t cost much in trade and fits with the desire for more of a power forward infused Leafs lineup, Dobson would have been the best possible answer to a puck moving defencemen, Ehlers was the premiere free agent option for scoring forwards, and Tanev, well… his brother is here and hopefully Dakota Joshua will be an acceptable substitute.

What player are you happy the Leafs didn’t bring in?

Similar to the above question with the same caveats about interpretation and open answer questions, here are the top five responses:

Brad Marchand, Nikolaj Ehlers, Tanner Jeannot, Mitch Marner, (tie between Patrick Kane, Sam Bennett, and Mikael Granlund)

What’s interesting is that Nikolaj Ehlers had almost the same amount of responses in both questions, making him surprisingly polarizing.

The Marner response also has to be noted as it encapsulates that there really is a large portion of the Leafs fanbase that is excited to move on from him.

Marchand is certainly a polarizing player but when you factor age and the term of his deal into things, the case can be made for a dodged bullet.

Looking at the biggest need for the Maple Leafs it is pretty much a two horse race between puck moving defencemen and a Marner replacement, with a shout out to top six capable centre rounding out the top three.

The Marner replacement aspect is one that is an interesting area to focus on as it is admittedly vague. The Leafs are not likely or want to go out to pay for a different 100 point scoring forward, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a need for a capable consistent scorer that will likely be on the powerplay and capable of handling around 18 minutes or more a night.

The puck moving is another high end acquisition and given the grudges held in this market towards Larry Murphy, Mattieu Schneider, Jake Gardiner, Morgan Rielly, Tomas Kaberle, and Bryan McCabe, it’s hard to think of a more thankless position in sports.

Again, it goes without saying that more options would probably be helpful, but when selecting the best of these options the idea of trying to trade Morgan Rielly was very popular. It was followed up by maybe if the Leafs have a plan in place, and my intention when writing the question was that someone would be replacing his top pairing puck moving and powerplay quarterbacking responsibilities.

Supporting the notion that moving Rielly would be a popular decision is the question above calling a puck moving defenceman a primary need as well as Noah Dobson being a player that people felt Toronto missed the boat on this summer.

And while Rielly as a Leaf has been an overall positive experience, it’s worth noting that he was noticeably a step behind last season, lost his spot on the top powerplay unit, and might not be the right fit with the current Leafs coaching staff. Throw in the fact that the changes to the core maybe shouldn’t stop with just Mitch Marner and Morgan Rielly is the next most reasonable candidate to explore moving after Tavares signed his team friendly contract.

Not surprisingly, Leafs fans want Stolarz back. Less than 2% don’t want to see him return and we’ll say that falls into the trolling fanbases discovering a Leafs related survey or purposeful contrarianism. Not to completely dismiss that as age and health could be a factor, but Joseph Woll being under contract as well certainly helps with risk mitigation.

Still, the majority of those polled still had a preference in regard to contract and wasn’t prepared to say yes without a qualifier. Keeping the term below four years was the priority over keeping the cap hit below $4M, and honestly that makes the most sense.

Part two of this survey will take a look at the current state of the Maple Leafs as well as some predictions for the future. Thanks again to all who participated.