Shocking News on Mitch Marner’s Poor Treatment Drops After Stanley Cup Heartbreak

As we get closer to July 1st, Mitch Marner gets closer to arriving at free agency. The Toronto Maple Leafs right winger might have very well played his last game with this team, considering he hasn’t made any concrete comments on what his plans are when he becomes a free agent, and judging by a recent revelation made by Chris Johnston on the Chris Johnston show, it looks like, aside from the recent playoff elimination, Mitch Marner might have a good reason to leave this team!

In a recent episode of the Chris Johnston show, the NHL reporter detailed a number of incidents wherein Mitch Marner faced severe harassment from Leafs fans. Many of the examples included harassment of Marner’s family and father, Paul Marner, in particular. While Johnston didn’t go into too much detail on all of the incidents out of respect for Marner, he did delve slightly deeper into an incident surrounding Marner’s contract renegotiation in 2019.

Marner didn’t sign his contract immediately at the time and the renegotiations were pushed into the time of training camp for that year, which Marner missed. He ended up signing the contract a day or two later, but in the meantime, fans weren’t having it. According to Johnston, “He (Marner) was walking his dog once and some guy that summer was yelling, like, “Why don’t you have a contract?” And people started talking a lot about his dad and what role his dad may or may not have played in those negotiations.” 

Johnston said earlier in the statement that if there was something that would make Marner not want to stay in Toronto, it would be the way he’s been treated by the fans, and the latest elimination game might have just made things a whole lot worse.

Are Toronto Maple Leaf fans unfairly harsh on their team and Mitch Marner?

In short, yes! Even the Florida Panthers’ Brad Marchand and coach Paul Maurice had to stand up for their opponents after the fans’ treatment of them in the elimination game. When the Leafs were clearly going to lose, many fans got up and left the Scotiabank Arena, and when the game was over, there were a bunch of Leafs sweaters that were thrown onto the ice. Ouch!

Regardless, however, Mitch Marner was drafted to the Maple Leafs in 2015 and has history with this team. When he was asked about his ten-year run soon after the playoff elimination, he replied with an emotional, “It meant everything.” However, when asked about his plans for the future, Marner replied, “I don’t have any thoughts right now.” 

One thing is for certain: a team is built up of more than a couple ruthless fans. And Mitch Marner will have to make his decision based on everything else that impacted his time with the Leafs. He is the fastest record in this franchise to reach 500 assists, so that’s got to say something about the way he functions within this team and the way it responds to him. To build up rapport like that again and from scratch can’t be easy, but Marner will have to make a call on what is best for him soon.