As it becomes more and more likely the Boston Bruins and Toronto Maple Leafs will meet in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the second season in a row, we’ll happily welcome any trolling that sets the table for the series.
On Tuesday, Boston’s professional pest Brad Marchand got a lot of attention in and around Toronto for a tweet he sent after Marner’s second straight three-point game in which he became the eighth player in Maple Leafs history to record 80 points in 66 games or less. In the tweet, Marchand threw praise at Marner and pondered what his next contract could look like.
“12m AAV?? It better be,” Marchand tweeted.
This, of course, was taken as a troll job by the Bruin because an AAV that high would make Marner the highest-paid Leaf and put the team in a more difficult position against next season’s cap. With William Nylander ($6.962 million) and Auston Matthews ($11.634 million) already signed, Marner is the last of Toronto’s big three RFAs to get a deal done. Kasperi Kapanen and Andreas Johnsson are also in need of new contracts before next season.
Marchand was asked about the tweet following his team’s 4-3 overtime win against Carolina Tuesday night.
“Some people really took that the wrong way,” Marchand said. “You gotta give the kid credit. He’s a great player that’s all I was trying to get at. He’s having a great year. It’s a big milestone for him. Just giving some credit where credit’s due that’s all.”
With 81 points in 66 games, Marner is Toronto’s highest-scoring player with a nine-point lead on John Tavares. He’s tied for ninth in scoring league wide, but while those numbers are great, wingers tend to get less than centres on these big contracts.
Only three of the 10 highest-paid NHL players against the cap are wingers, with Patrick Kane’s $10.5 million AAV the highest in the league at the position.
We’ll chalk this up to Marchand doubling down on his troll job of Leafs Nation.
Later in the day from the GM Meetings, Toronto’s Kyle Dubas chimed in on Marchand’s “help” in the negotiations.
“I think it was a master troll job to say the least you have to respect that element of it,” Dubas said. “From my end, I think the part that I liked about it was that there’s over a 90 per cent chance we’re going to play them in the playoffs if you just take the probabilities of it, so that he woke up the morning of a game day and was thinking about the Toronto Maple Leafs I thought was a positive thing for us.”
Bring on the first round series.
[relatedlinks]
