SHOULD MARNER GO?

Five days after watching what was an embarrassment to the franchise (that game 5 effort), I'm not sure what to do.  I'm still disgusted by what I watched.

Marner and his father Paul got the big contract last September, then he admitted that he didn't really show up in game 1 (he wasn't that good in games 2-5), which is inexcusable.  Both teams were dealing with the bubble, no fans, and a long layoff. Have to be better. Period.

Matthews was outstanding, Tavares was good, Nylander was good.  Their depth forwards were below average. Losing Muzzin was a huge blow (never mind going to Marincin rather than Sandin).  Biggest factor was shooting 2.4% at even strength and getting shut out in 2 of 5 games; their goalies posted something like a .960 SPCT which is ridiculous. 

I understand Dubas not wanting to throw his players under the bus publicly, but that wasn't close to being good enough.  Training wheels are off.  They're out of excuses.  If there's a deal to be made for Marner I've no drama making it, but selling a dollar for 2 quarters makes no sense.  With two assistant coaches gone (McFarland to Kingston, Brewer to getting sacked) it's time to bring in an assistant coach with zero tolerance for bulls***.

The bigger question might be *can* he go.

A 10M+ cap hit for 5 more years with most of his salary paid in bonuses is going to be very hard to move. The teams with that much cap space available for a single player don't typically have the cash to pay players that way, and the ones that can afford it don't have the cap space.

As an aside, that $34M cap hit actually cost them over $45M this year because of how the contracts were structured.