Former Maple Leaf calls Mitch Marner a mouse live on air adding more to the drama

The former Maple Leafs winger unloaded during a segment on Leafs Morning Take, responding to Vegas Golden Knights GM Kelly McCrimmon's suggestion that Marner now benefits from a deeper supporting cast.

Rosehill partly agreed with McCrimmon - then redirected the blame squarely onto Marner's shoulders.

He said Marner was timid, played from the perimeter, and avoided 50-50 battles during Toronto's most painful playoff exits.

The language was blunt, the kind that sticks in a hockey market already raw from watching its former franchise winger lead another team's Stanley Cup Final run.

But Rosehill's own words work against his argument. McCrimmon told reporters before the Cup Final that Vegas is a deeper and better team than what Marner had in Toronto, according to CBC Sports.

If that's true - and Rosehill himself conceded the point to a degree - then the environment shaped the player far more than anyone in Toronto wants to admit.

In Game 1 against the Carolina Hurricanes, Marner threw himself in front of a shot in the dying seconds of a 5-4 Vegas win.

That's the exact kind of gritty, high-stakes play Rosehill accused him of never making in blue and white.

Marner now leads all playoff scorers with 22 points through 17 games, per NHL.com, and sits as a Conn Smythe Trophy frontrunner.

The player Rosehill described as wanting things to be easy is doing the hardest things on hockey's biggest stage.

The uncomfortable truth sitting underneath Rosehill's rant is that McCrimmon's depth argument holds up.

Toronto leaned on too few players for too long, and when the playoffs tightened, the room had no margin for anyone to struggle.

Calling Marner a mouse doesn't change the fact that Vegas built the structure he needed to thrive.

Rosehill meant to bury Marner's Toronto legacy - he may have buried the Leafs' roster-building philosophy instead.