Back to Marner, because I've got some choice words for him & his camp after the way they've been badmouthing the team on the way out, talking about how he feels disrespected by the organization.
Well, let me tell you something right now. Marner & his camp played this game. They held out because they wanted Matthews money, they wanted the captaincy. But when it was all said & done, they got what they wanted. Marner got his $11M contract, and whether anyone thought it was a fair contract or not, the fact of the matter is, management trusted this guy enough to give him that much money. They saw him as a core piece going forward, so for them, it was justifiable.
But for as much as the organization invested in this core, it's only fair to expect a return on investment. After all, that's part of doing business. You want to see your investments pay off. You want to see results, and not just in the regular season, but in the playoffs too. As far as the latter is concerned however, they haven't lived up to their end of the bargain. The team has saw players shuffled in & out of the lineup, 2 major shakeups behind the bench, and changes in the front office. Yet, the core remained intact, and the result has always been the same. So after all that, can you really blame management for wanting to explore moving on? I think not, and for Marner's camp to whine about that is downright silly. Management has never been shy in going the distance to do everything in their power to accommodate this team. They sure as shit haven't been shy in throwing as much money at almost everything for the last decade either. They've given the core pieces everything they wanted contractually since they came off their ELCs. They make more money here than most comparables, they have NMCs, and they have a full bonus structure. Not a single one of them has a leg to stand on when it comes to how this organization has treated them.
If there's anything management deserves to be criticized for, it's running it back when the writing has been on the wall for years now, and also for Shanahan allowing Marner's NTC to kick in. He knew full well the consequences of that. But to talk as if there's been this lack of respect after all the trust that was put into this whole process is utter bullshit.
Going back, I will also say the the crap Marner put up from Babcock was shitty, and the Schedule B stuff was handled poorly, but even still, that doesn't justify or excuse his actions. Even aside from those incidents from Lamoriello & Babcock, the fact management held so much belief in the core in the face of so much adversity speaks volume as to how much belief they held in this group. It's just too bad Marner's took it for granted, and that he's decided to burn this bridge on the way out.