Toronto Maple Leafs' Mitch Marner talks to a teammate during a game against the Ottawa Senators in Toronto, on Nov. 12, 2024.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
It is difficult to imagine a worse farewell under the circumstances than the one Mitch Marner gave Toronto at the end of last season.
Marner had just scored one goal in another seven-game playoff disaster, and was now Public Enemy Numbers 1, 2 and 3.
Offered a chance to explain, he came out to talk looking like a kid whose parents just found out he spent next semester’s tuition money on a used Trans-Am. Which is to say, unbothered.
In the moment, it was a disaster, especially the bit about how the Leafs are “looked upon as kind of gods” in Toronto.
But in retrospect, Marner did two clever things – he said he wanted to remain a Leaf, and he didn’t apologize.
The remain-a-Leaf thing is purely administrative. Everybody says that. Ryan O’Reilly said it right before he signed with the NHL equivalent of Metallurg Magnitogorsk. His next best option was to retire.
But the non-apology was key. Toronto loves a player who says he likes them back, but obviously doesn’t. Many of the great Leafs have been this sort of cliché bad boyfriend. They become domesticated after they leave, once they realize that no other city knows their name, never mind loves them this hard.
But since it’s hard to apprehend that process as it happens in real time, back in May, all of the Leafs’ problems had become Marner problems. He wasn’t as obviously gifted as Auston Matthews, as charismatic as William Nylander or as expendable as John Tavares. As goats go, Marner was just right.
Marner did the thing agents tell their superstar clients to do when things go wrong, but so often don’t: nothing.
He was quiet all summer, and arrived back his usual crabby self. You have to admire a player this slight who’s able to carry around a chip that large.
His new approach to his job – I’ll show up, punch in, put in a shift and then I’m going home. Don’t bother asking me out for a drink afterward. I’m not interested.
In another Canadian city, a native son who scores around 100 points every year and is name-checked for a Selke every time it comes up would be the centrepiece of the team’s marketing. In Toronto, Marner has become the George of these Beatles.
Matthews gets those weird-but-not-weird-enough RBC ads that some manager somewhere should be fired for, and Nylander gets the photo spreads. All Marner does is play hockey.
People go on and on about how hockey players don’t play with enough joy. How they should all be riding their sticks up and down the ice and high-fiving the mascots. But that is not the player the hockey obsessive prefers.
The player they like best is someone who is out there settling a grudge that will never be over. Your Bobby Clarkes, Scott Stevenses and Brendan Shanahans. Why do you think the latter has been given 10 years to figure things out here?
Guys like Shanahan didn’t play with joy. They played with contained rage. Wayne Gretzky got to be joyful because Mark Messier was standing behind him ready to rip your arm off and beat you with it.
Marner is never going to be an intimidator, but he plays with that personality now. Even his celebrations are edgy.
On Thursday night, Marner scored his 700th point in the Leafs’ win over New Jersey and Sheldon Keefe to end a three-game losing streak. That’s a lot of history made in one pass.
Per his habit, Marner didn’t exactly embrace the moment afterward. That might seem too much like conceding to the press mob. Other people bragged for him.
“I just found out after the game that it’s the fastest in Leafs history,” said head coach Craig Berube. “Well, he’s a heck of a player. We all know that. You guys seen him a lot more than me over the years.”
And no one rolled their eyes.
It occurred to you then – has Mitch Marner been forgiven?
It seems so. If you suggested trading Marner for a brick wall like Shea Theodore to anyone in the arena on Thursday night – a trade that was widely mooted back in May and June – they’d all do the same thing. They’d laugh at you.
The Leafs don’t do much at the highest level, but they have a wonderful sense of the difference between what their customers say they want and what they want.
Nobody actually wanted the Leafs to trade Marner. Even if it had worked out, it would have been dealing from a position of weakness. Leaf fans would rather lose forever than be seen getting taken advantage of.
Marner is still a Leaf for two reasons – because he could nix any trade, and because he’s from here.
Other guys may believe there is a better situation out there, somewhere they can make just as much money, be just as big a deal and have to deliver next to nothing for it. But someone who’s from here isn’t so able to fool themselves.
Through a weird Toronto-only combination of ability and unwillingness to bend, Marner’s done it. In eight months, he’s gone from the club’s bug to an indispensable feature. And he’s done it without changing any of the story’s main points. The Leafs still haven’t won a single thing that matters with him. They may never do so, but now he must be re-signed. Anything less is a management failure.
There are two possible worlds for Marner. He goes to the 4 Nations Face-Off and dominates, the Leafs take a couple of rounds, he’s just as good at the Olympics and everybody agrees it was a near miss with that guy. The other world is more of the same.
The Leafs win in one of those scenarios. Marner’s won either way.