It suggests that Marner outperformed his $10.9m contract by providing $12m in value. Since I think ALL of Dom’s valuations are too high by around 15%, I think Marner probably was providing closer to $10m in value – which feels about right, because those who favour him have no problem with him getting north of $12.5m and those who don’t like him think that $8m is about right.
I’ve never been a fan of Dom’s model and I think you’re right about him over/under evaluating players by a margin.
If you only consider regular season success, I think Marner was paid close to what he brought to the table. Tavares was clearly overpaid but still produced enough to be considered a success as far as UFA signing goes.
It truly is the playoffs results that make these numbers don’t work as you cannot pay these salaries to player and never see them take over a game and give you a chance to win it all. The only player that did it on the Leafs was Nylander but it was also followed by disappearing acts at other times…. where a show of force from Matthews or Marner would have made the difference, probably.