One former Toronto Maple Leafs veteran doesn’t Mitch Marner or his agent, Darren Ferris.
Carlo Colaiacovo spent several years as a Maple Leafs player, playing for the franchise from 2003-04 until 2008-09. He had a long professional hockey career with his last NHL game occurring during the 2014-15 season and his last professional game being during the 2017-18 season.
However, he’s become even better known in his post-NHL career as a sports broadcaster in the local Toronto area on TSN for one of their morning shows, First Up. Marner’s agent, Ferris, recently took aim at the Maple Leafs organization for never protecting the star player during his time there. Marner was one of the Leafs’ top players and helped lead the organization to a run of nine consecutive playoff appearances.
Colaiacovo didn’t hold back in his criticism of Marner and his agent Ferris.
“We are big fans of Mitch Marner. We’ve always been big fans of Mitch Marner the player,” Colaiacovo said. “Mitch Marner … decided to make a decision that was best for him, and he wanted to move on. Guess what? Everybody else here has moved on, too.”
Marner was involved in a sign-an-trade to the Las Vegas Golden Knights and immediately had success there, leading them to the Stanley Cup Finals in his first season there. Marner recorded a hat trick in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals against the Carolina Hurricanes in a six minute, 11-second time frame. While Marner had an amazing playoff run, the Golden Knights came up short, losing to Carolina in six games.
“He almost won the Conn Smythe,” Colaiacovo said. “There were a lot of people who were cheering for him. But where was that in Toronto? … Where was that level of play in Toronto when games mattered the most, and you needed your best player to step up and make a big play?”
Marner was a three-time All-Star as a member of the Maple Leafs and had been the alternate captain in Toronto. While the Leafs were an annual playoff contender during his tenure with the Maple Leafs, they won just two postseason series.
“The proof is in the pudding with Mitch Marner’s playoff statistics as a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs,” said Colaiacovo. “Yes, he did accumulate a ton of points, but in Games 5 through 7, the stats are there.”
Marner was one of the highest-paid players in the league during his tenure with the Leafs, signing a six-year, $65 million deal with an average annual value of over $10.8 million in 2019.
“You want to be bitter,” Colaiacovo said. “You want to hold a grudge against the team; you want to say that the team didn’t protect you or the team didn’t give you what you wanted. The team wanted to make you the highest-paid player in franchise history before you left. The team made you the fifth-highest player in the league on your second contract.”
“So stop crying wolf here. Stop living in the past and wondering, ‘What if?’ Mitch Marner made a ton of money as a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs, not just on the ice but off the ice, too.”
It’s clear that there’s no love lost between both sides. It’s worth noting that the Maple Leafs did miss the playoffs for the first time in a decade in their first season without Marner. Toronto has since rebuilt the organization under the leadership of new general manager John Chayka.
The Maple Leafs have made moves for the likes of two-time Stanley Cup champ Sergei Bobrovsky and former Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman Darren Raddysh.
“You keep attacking the organization and the fans,” he said. “All it’s going to do is make people hate you even more.”
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