Even if you lived under a rock under a mountain, you still wouldn't be able to escape the Mitch Marner discourse.
Marner is a favourite subject among hockey fans and critics, especially around playoff time. Every conversation around Marner starts in a similar fashion. He’s an incredible player who’s one of the best at his craft. Marner is just as responsible defensively as he is gifted offensively. He can score 100 points and also be in the Selke conversation.
But the discussion eventually turns to Marner’s playoff shortcomings. At a glance, the 29-year-old’s numbers are strong, averaging nearly a point per game during his postseason career, though the majority of that came early in playoff series, when the stakes aren’t as high. Marner scored just one goal in Games 5, 6 or 7 across nine playoff appearances with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
This spring, it’s been a different story with the Vegas Golden Knights, though. Marner is leading the playoffs in scoring with 18 points in 12 games and has put together some massive outings. He scored a hat-trick in Game 3 against the Anaheim Ducks, added three assists in Game 4 and was at his best in a pair of close-out games.
The first came against the Utah Mammoth in round one, where Marner scored the game-winner in Game 6, plus another tally and a helper to help Vegas eliminate the Mammoth. It took him all of one round to eclipse his Game 5, 6 and 7 goal total in Toronto.
On Thursday night, he wasted no time making an imprint on another elimination game against the Ducks. Marner dazzled with a highlight-reel goal early and then set up Brett Howden with a gorgeous shorthanded pass, and Vegas never looked back. For the first time in his career, Marner is headed to a conference final.
Marner looks like a different player this time around and has to be considered one of the frontrunners for the Conn Smythe if the playoffs were to end today. So, what has changed for Marner in Vegas?
Competition
You couldn’t ask for a better path through the playoffs this season if you were Vegas. The Pacific division was easily the weakest of the four in the NHL, as the entire group would’ve missed the playoffs if they were in the East. That includes Utah and Anaheim, the first two opponents for the Golden Knights, who both play a style that allows Marner to be at his best.
That’s a stark contrast from what he faced in the Atlantic while with Toronto. The Atlantic has sent a team to the Cup final in each of the past seven seasons, including two in 2021, and has claimed the championship four times over that stretch. Marner and the Maple Leafs routinely crossed paths with the likes of the Boston Bruins, Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers in the first or second round, teams that play a great structure and take away your time and space. That makes it much more difficult on a player like Marner.
The Ducks, for example, play a lot more wide open and are willing to trade chances with you up and down the ice. Only four teams gave up more high-danger chances than Anaheim this season, and only three teams allowed more goals. When it comes to Utah, they aren’t an overly physical team, which also plays into the hands of Marner. The Mammoth finished in the bottom third of the league when it came to hits in the regular season, compared to a team like the Panthers, which ranked no worse than second in the past three campaigns. There’s simply more room for Marner to work with, and it’s leading to him being able to get to the net for high-quality looks.
All this isn’t to say Marner’s accomplishments in this post-season should be diminished. It takes a highly skilled player to take advantage of open space to make opponents pay, and not many can do so with the ease that Marner can. That said, there’s no denying Vegas got a friendly draw in this current playoff format, with one team making its first-ever playoff appearance and the other getting back in for the first time in seven seasons. Having to deal with the Lightning or Panthers again certainly would have made life more difficult for Marner.
Deployment
In Toronto, Marner played almost exclusively with Auston Matthews and was stapled to his wing. That was a good thing for Marner in many ways. Matthews is an incredible goal scorer, and Marner’s playmaking ability really complemented that, leading to massive offensive production for both players. However, stacking the top line meant Marner and company faced the toughest matchups on a nightly basis.
The forward group is much more balanced in Vegas, and Marner has played predominantly on the second unit in the post-season. That means some more favourable matchups for Marner, as the opposition also needs to focus on the top line of Jack Eichel, Ivan Barbashev and Pavel Dorofeyev. Plus, Marner was shifted to centre for some time as well while William Karlsson was injured. That allows you to play with the puck a little more and makes Marner more challenging to check as opposed to if he were strictly on the wing.
Credit Marner for taking advantage and propping up some other players around him that are becoming unlikely contributors on this Golden Knights playoff run. Howden and Marner are building some excellent chemistry as Howden has scored eight times already in the playoffs. To put that in perspective, Howden had just nine career goals in 43 playoff games prior to this spring, and much of his recent success can be attributed to playing with Marner.
Another change for Marner is that he entered the post-season much fresher than in past years, too. He averaged just 19:57 in the regular season for the Golden Knights, around a minute and a half less than he played during the past three seasons in Toronto and his lowest total since the 2018-19 campaign.
Structure
When Marner was with the Leafs, he was arguably the team’s best defensive forward. The only player you could make a case that was better is Matthews, but even so, it would be splitting hairs. Beyond those two, no one was even close on the defensive side of the puck. That’s not the case in Vegas, though.
Eichel is a great two-way player, as is William Karlsson. Mark Stone is a takeaway machine, and the addition of Nic Dowd also helps in the defensive zone. Not to mention the Golden Knights' blue line, which is well-rounded and balanced.
In Toronto, the Leafs really leaned on Marner defensively and that was a much bigger part of his game. For instance, Marner played 2:09 per game shorthanded last season, the most among any Leaf forward and behind only Chris Tanev and Jake McCabe on the team. This season, he hasn’t been used as much on the penalty kill. Marner is playing nearly a minute less per game shorthanded and only ranks 11th in that category among Vegas skaters.
All this eases the heavy lifting Marner has to do defensively and helps free him up to focus on creating offence and using his skill. Even when Marner struggled to produce in some of those key moments for the Maple Leafs, he was still very responsible defensively. But now the Golden Knights are trying to make sure there’s a priority on maximizing what he can contribute on the scoresheet.
Pressure
There’s a lot of external pressure in a market like Toronto. It’s a hyper-focused fanbase, and there’s no other team in the NHL with as much media coverage. Marner no longer has to deal with that in Vegas, but there may actually be more internal pressure to perform with the Golden Knights. This is an organization that won’t hesitate to trade a first-round pick if it helps them get better today, or to move someone like Max Pacioretty for future considerations, or to trade a beloved player like Marc-Andre Fleury and to fire Bruce Cassidy days before the playoffs.
Marner didn’t have to deal with anything like that with the Maple Leafs. They were very comfortable with the status quo and willingly ran the core back year after year. However, in Toronto, where it was more challenging for Marner, was the weight he carried from past playoff failures. You could feel with each passing year that Marner, and the rest of the core, for that matter, were going to have a difficult time overcoming that baggage. He’s no longer dealing with any of that in Vegas. The Golden Knights won a Cup three years ago, and all they’ve known is success in their brief history, so Marner isn’t being weighed down by past shortcomings now. It’s a fresh start.
With all this said, we're not sure Marner would’ve ever been able to have post-season success in Toronto if he re-signed and the team continued to run it back. It wasn’t working, and it was best for all parties to move on. He should bear a big responsibility for the playoff failures the Leafs had, but circumstances are important, too. And right now, Marner appears to be a perfect fit in Vegas.
