As a winger, he's asking for 11% of cap space. That's far above the going rate. He (or his agent) is over-valuing himself - vis-a-vis not only the market, but the team. Matthews and Tavares, as goal-scoring centremen, are more valuable commodities than a play-making winger. Fans are turning a little sour, because his asks are jeopardizing the teams chances of putting together an improved product on the ice. Asking for money that would mean the team holds almost 50% of their cap in 4 players, have 3 of the top 5 salaries in the league, and have never made it out of the 1st round.
Based on his stats, the market would value him at a high-9M, low 10M AAV. He wants to call Matthews as his comparable, but it's apples and oranges. I honestly believe if Dubas caves and gives him $11M plus, the team will take a step back, and end up a wildcard playoff spot at best. Look at the Atlantic. Tampa and Boston aren't going to be getting any worse, and Florida is going to improve bigly. I don't see that Tavares' contract is screwing things up, Nylander's (he should've been mid-6M) and Marner's asks are doing it. That's about $1.5M in cap space over-allocated to the two of them. Pretty valuable when the team needs a reliable backup goalie, and only have 4 of their D under contract at the moment (one of whom wants out).
I said it before, but the market is shifting (because of all these super-talented 21-year old RFAs) to paying younger talent the kind of money that had been reserved for the 28 or 30-year old A-list. The young players expect to be paid for future/potential performance, while the older ones expect to be paid on past AND potential performance. They can't have it both ways. The Leafs got caught right in the middle of it - paying $11M for JT, and now staring down the barrel of that for two 21-year olds. These kids are performing very well, very fast, and want to be compensated for being cheap / entry-level labour for 3 years, and over-delivering. Well, go thank your union for that. That's the way things got structured, so suck it the fuck up. Now, without arbitration rights, they're only card is 'pay me what I want, or I'll hold out'. It's gonna take one GM with brass balls to sit someone for a year, or this is gonna continue to escalate.
Was Marner's performance better than the $2.5M he was paid - sure it was. But that's the deal for entry level. And later in your career, you'll be over-paid for your performance. Is PK Subban a $9M player? Will Erik Karlsson be an $11M player when he's 35? Hell no to both. As I said, the tide is shifting, and the players want it both ways. The economics simply don't work for both ends.