It turns out that Mitch Marner wasn't the problem.
During most of the Toronto Maple Leafs' recent history, over what could be called the Auston Matthews era, there has been a lingering question about what was to blame for the team's repeated playoff failures.
With the Leafs said to be lacking goaltending, a superstar top-pair defender, or the heart and guile required in the postseason, many theories emerged about their problems. Yet, the one inescapable explanation was that the club had a clutch of highly paid forwards who tended to come up short in big games.
All the money Toronto spent on the Core Four meant it couldn't allocate enough elsewhere in a salary-cap world. What would the roster look like if it weren't quite so top-heavy?
After Marner left for Las Vegas as part of a sign-and-trade deal, there's an answer to that question: So far, it looks bad.