CHICAGO – The biggest trick question fired at Mitchell Marner at last week’s NHL Combine came from the club he wants to select him the most at the draft later this month.
“If your mother was sitting in that chair, what would she say about you?” a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs front office asked him.
“She’d [say] I’m a funny kid,” replied the 18-year-old prospect, who interviewed with 18 teams. “I have a lot of energy and joke around with my friends a lot. I’m around my family a lot, and I’m always trying to make people happy.”
Marner, an undersized centre with oversized gumption, grew up in Thornhill, Ont., which means he learned the game in the Greater Toronto Hockey League and grew up a Leafs fan.
And he’d like nothing more than to make the man who gave a small kid his Ontario Hockey League shot happy, again.
If the Maple Leafs’ Mark Hunter, Toronto’s shot-caller at the draft, selects Marner over, say, top defence prospect Noah Hanifin at the No. 4 spot, it will be the second time he bet on Marner.
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Two years ago while with the London Knights of the Ontario Hockey League, Hunter selected Marner in the first round. Marner had a scholarship offer on the table from the University of Michigan, but he decided to play for Hunter, and the two have since formed a strong friendship.
“Ever since then, I’ve had a great respect for him. For him to take that sacrifice and risk drafting me at 5’6” [and 125 pounds], that was big for that team,” Marner said Monday at United Centre prior to Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final.
“London is known for having a good first-rounder. He made me feel that I was at home and I could go in and play the way I wanted to play. He wasn’t going to force me to do anything I didn’t want to do.”
Hunter was Marner’s friend off the ice and he was hard on him while on it. This past season, Marner finished second in OHL scoring to Dylan Strome (the Arizona Coyotes’ expected pick at No. 3), he made the league’s First Team All-Star squad and now stands at 5-foot-11, 160 pounds.
Marner figures he’s not done growing.
“My brother is six-two. He grew late. He just stopped growing now at 22,” said Marner, who’s eager to see Tyler Johnson play live. “A guy who wasn’t even drafted is leading the playoffs in points, always being told he was too small, and look at him now. That’s what I’m trying to do.”
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Marner said he and Hunter have joked about repeating 2013 all over.
“He’s a guy that for sure I’d love playing for again. He’s taught me a lot about hockey, so for me to go back to his team in the NHL would be special for me personally,” Marner said. “We can’t control anything NHL scouts want to do. We just have to go sit in those [draft] chairs and wait our name to be called.”
What Marner can control is his approach. For that, the young GTA forward draws inspiration from a Montreal Canadiens legend.
“Maurice Richard? Who is this guy?” Marner recalls thinking when he read the back of 1997’s The Rocket DVD.
“He played in the NHL a long time ago, so at first I wasn’t into it. Then I was like, ‘Wow, this is inspiring.’ I couldn’t stop watching it,” Marner explained. “The stuff he had to battle to make the NHL and stay in the NHL was crazy to watch.”
Marner says he has watched the film as many as 15 times, drawing parallels between Richard’s battle for NHL acceptance as French-Canadian and Marner’s own challenges as a small player.
“It made me feel that anything is possible in the NHL if you put your heart into it. It made me feel like I could do it,” said Marner.
“The NHL’s changed. It’s not about height. It’s not about cross-checking as hard as you can. It’s not about hooking. A lot of those will get you a penalty nowadays. It’s about the speed game now; it’s about thinking. If you have the brain to play in the NHL, you can play. If you can dodge hits, you can play. It’s up to you to put the work in.”
