![\"Mitch](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/GettyImages-2215808242-e1755288054758.jpg\")
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Did the Toronto Maple Leafs do the right thing in letting Mitch Marner go?<\/p>\n
TThe Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a> were among the 31 teams that envied the Florida Panthers<\/a> once they paraded around their home rink with the Stanley Cup. Auston Matthews<\/a> can\u2019t do it all, and an offensive-minded addition<\/a> up front or on the back end<\/a> would do a world of good.<\/p>\n Their odd offseason decisions are coming under fire from long-time NHL analyst Damien Cox.<\/p>\n Maple Leafs Offseason \u201cDoesn\u2019t Make a Lot of Sense\u201d<\/p>\n Cox made an appearance on the Ladies Talkin\u2019 Leafs podcast. During the August 13th episode, he expressed his lack of understanding of what the organization has been trying to achieve with its moves this offseason.<\/p>\n \u201cI look at the moves they\u2019ve made and what they appear to be trying to do, and it doesn\u2019t make a whole lot of sense to me,\u201d Cox said to the podcast hosts<\/a>. \u201cI still think they\u2019re going to have a good hockey team. They will be in that 100-point range again next year. Cause they\u2019ve still got great goaltending, star players, (and) a pretty sturdy defense.\u201d<\/p>\n They have brought in Dakota Joshua<\/a> and Matias Maccelli<\/a>, extended John Tavares<\/a>, and traded away Mitch Marner<\/a> this summer.<\/p>\n \u201cI just don\u2019t see how they\u2019re going to be better.\u201d<\/p>\n Maple Leafs Move That Made the Least Sense<\/p>\n Cox\u2019s isolated goal scoring<\/a> as the primary area of criticism.<\/p>\n \u201cOnce again, when it mattered, (they) couldn\u2019t score,\u201d Cox explained. \u201cIn the final four games against Florida, unless I\u2019m wrong, they scored four goals. You\u2019re not going to win many series scoring four goals.\u201d<\/p>\n The long-time NHL analyst sees the Marner trade as part of Brad Treliving\u2019s calling card. Additionally, they haven\u2019t replaced the offense that he brought to the team.<\/p>\n \u201cSo what did they do? They got rid of their leading scorer,\u201d Cox stated, perplexed. \u201cThat team needs to create more offense. I don\u2019t see anything they\u2019ve done that\u2019s created more offense. Now we are going down the Brad Treliving path that he did in Calgary<\/a>, bringing in size and beef, not valuing skill in quite the same way.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat didn\u2019t work in Calgary. Now they (Maple Leafs) are betting that same formula is going to work in Toronto.\u201d<\/p>\n Having more snarl in an NHL lineup is not a bad thing. But it shouldn\u2019t come at the expense of skill. Marner finished the regular season with 18 points more<\/a> than their next highest scorer, Matthews. During the playoffs, Marner finished second in scoring with 13 points in 13 games. Only William Nylander scored more points during the playoffs<\/a> than Marner (15).<\/p>\n Maple Leafs Should Have Let Tavares Go Instead of Marner<\/p>\n Cox believes that the solution this offseason wasn\u2019t signing and trading Marner; it was letting John Tavares walk.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the answer was to keep Mitch Marner and to build a better team around him,\u201d Cox revealed. \u201cFind a way to do that. Let John Tavares go, use that money to bring in some other guys.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMitch Marner is going to look great in Vegas; he\u2019s going to make the Maple Leafs look bad.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tCaleb Kerney<\/a> Caleb covers the NHL for Heavy.com. He has covered professional hockey since 2022, including bylines at Dobber Prospects, The Hockey Writers, and The Hockey News. More about Caleb Kerney<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tMore Heavy on Maple Leafs\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\tLoading more stories\n\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty Did the Toronto Maple Leafs do the right thing in letting Mitch Marner go? TThe Toronto Maple…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73722,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-73721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}