Tales From the Clipped: Mason Marchment, the mystery box who remains a mystery

Good first half. Awful second half. What does that make Mason Marchment going into next year?

Original artwork by Ryan Konzelman.

I took a poll on Mason Marchment in August. Unfortunately it was a bad one, because I forgot the most important option: that perhaps Marchment just had a down year.

I’m not sure why my brain skipped that one. I think the issue is that Marchment seemed good, until he seemed unlucky; until he seemed outright bad. By the time the playoffs rolled around, he was a nothingburger. I forgot what “Good Marchment” even looked like. How else could I envision a bounceback year except with someone else carrying him?

That’s what we’re here to find out. Marchment was always gonna be an x-factor. He was a late bloomer who scored 47 points in 54 games for the then-high flying Florida Panthers. Then he came to Dallas only to net 31 pts in 68 games. That’s a 71-point pace versus 37.

That’s an obscene difference. But between the tragic death of his father (RIP Bryan), a shooting percentage nearly cut in half from his prior year, plus various injuries in the regular and the postseason, perhaps he was just fighting against a perfect storm. Mystery or not, we know one thing: Marchment was really good until he wasn’t. What can we learn from both to figure out what’s next?