TORONTO — It started before the puck was dropped.
With the rink still dim, as spotlights and projections flitted across the ice, Mitch Marner’s Vegas Golden Knights skated out onto the sheet at Scotiabank Arena. It took only a couple strides before the fans packing the stands spotted the gold-and-grey No. 93 on the back of his sweater, before they recognized the pre-game routine, the one-footed loops in the corner.
And then it fell, like a baritone chorus, drowning out the metallic riff of Disturbed’s ‘Down With The Sickness’ flooding the arena speakers — the boos that have been discussed and dissected to death in the hours, days and weeks leading up to this tilt.
Marner, the hometown boy who played nine seasons and 657 games in a Maple Leafs sweater, who amassed the sixth-most points of anyone who ever did, had returned. And just like the last time he was on this sheet, as the Maple Leafs’ 2025 post-season run came to a crashing close in Game 7 of the second round, the blue-and-white faithful made their feelings crystal clear.
“It was fine,” Marner said with a smile late Friday night, in a hallway in the bowels of Scotiabank Arena, to a familiar huddled mass of reporters. “I knew it was going to come tonight. … It was what I expected. I just tried to play through it, play with the puck, and play my game.”
He was offered little relief as he played his game. While the fans serenaded him before the anthems were sung, they offered up an even more passionate rendition as the winger took his place for the opening faceoff. Then it was into the staccatos, quick bursts of boos every time Marner touched the puck, a secondary game developing over the course of the night as the crowd sussed out the dynamics of their jeering — even a quick wave of his stick over the puck merited a boo, and a rush up ice with the puck on his blade saw the intensity of the booing swell the longer he held onto it.
The crowd even came up with a novel addition — a full-throated cheer every time Marner skated off the ice at the end of his shift. A celebration of his absence.
“I told him, ‘I don’t think you were that good that shift, I don’t know why they’re cheering,’” Knights head coach Bruce Cassidy said with a chuckle post-game.
“The cheering when I was going off was pretty funny,” Marner added. “I didn’t see that one coming.”
Still, as was the case a week ago, it was Marner and his new mates that got the last laugh. A minute into the game, after the home fans had made clear their stance on the reunion, Marner was standing up on the bench with a fist bump ready for Jack Eichel, the centreman having opened the scoring early, with ease.
Vegas added another in what was a dominant first period. And while Toronto pushed back with a strong middle frame, kicked off by a John Tavares goal 13 seconds in, Marner added his own crowd-silencing moment early in the second period to restore his new club’s two-goal lead.
The scoresheet will say Pavel Dorofeyev’s tally was unassisted, but it was a deft touch from Marner that spurred the sequence that led to the goal. The play started deep in Toronto’s zone, with Marner in a race for the puck against Morgan Rielly. A stick lift from the winger allowed Vegas to push the puck further into the Leafs’ end. Marner had cut to the high slot, protecting against a counterattack. The puck was bumped out to the blue line — but before it could get there, No. 93 flashed that signature skill, one-touching it behind his back to a waiting Dorofeyev, who turned, fired, rang it off the post, and buried the eventual rebound.
By the end of the night, the Golden Knights had run up the score to 6-3 for their second straight win against the blue-and-white. And there was no denying this one meant a little more to the visitors.
“For sure. He’s one of our own,” Vegas captain Mark Stone said after the dust had settled on the win. “You know, we play for each other — we always have, we always will. That’s the motto of our locker room, so we definitely wanted to win it for him.
“We knew how much this meant to him. You know, when I played my first game in Ottawa, it meant a lot to me. Those types of games mean something. So, I’m glad we were able to gut through it and get the win.”
Marner admitted it had been a strange night in the building he’d spent so many years in. He’d gone through the motions of a normal gameday, talked to his son Miles on the phone to get his mind off all of it, he said. But eventually, it was time to face it.
“On my way to the rink, I didn’t think of it too much. It was really in warmups that it kind of just felt odd and weird,” he said.
“I mean, you’re going to be nervous, I think,” Stone said Friday of what the experience is like. “I can’t speak for Mitch, but I think he was nervous. I think he was excited, too. There’s a lot of good memories here for him. He did a lot of awesome things here, and he has a lot of good friendships over in their locker room. I think he really appreciated the support that he got when he was wearing a Maple Leafs jersey.
“But I think it was just time for a change for him, and we’re thankful that he joined our organization.”
For all the jeering, the Maple Leafs faithful did give Marner his due when a video tribute played out on the Jumbotron, replaying a reel of his finest moments in the home side’s sweater. There were boos, still, but cheers too, the crowd’s loyalties momentarily divided.
“I thought the fans were great,” Stone said. “Gave him a great ovation that I firmly believe he deserved — he put in nine good years — but then once the puck dropped, the competitiveness came out. You’re expecting that, right? He doesn’t play for the Maple Leafs anymore. But they tipped their cap to what he did for the organization, which was awesome to see.”
“I don’t know, I was trying to just take it in, not get emotional,” Marner said of the tribute, which he watched from the bench before skating out for a brief lap. “I tried to remember we’re still in a hockey game. … I tried to give my love back, and then get back into the game.”
There were moments, though, where the weight of the night seemed clear. Late in the second period, during a commercial break, as the shovels cleared snow from the ice and his mates convened at the bench, Marner drifted around one end of the sheet, looking up into the crowd. Taking it all in. A few teammates skated by, offering a supportive tap on the shin.
“Listen, we all know it was an important game for Mitch,” Cassidy said. “We’ve had some guys go through it — Jack (Eichel) in particular. So I think our guys were going to try to bring their best for Mitch. And they did.”
When the game was through, that mass of reporters gathered in that arena hallway, awaiting No. 93. While defender Rasmus Andersson — who made his Golden Knights debut in this hectic affair — finished up his scrum, Marner waited off to the side. He shook hands with a pair of longtime Scotiabank Arena staffers, excitedly mentioning he was going to go find Auston. He bounced up and down a few times, trying to spot No. 34 over the crowd. As soon as his own scrum concluded, he beelined for the other side of the hallway to share a few hugs with Matthews, Rielly, Jake McCabe and Max Domi.
Asked after the game if he felt a sense of relief now that this long-awaited reunion was finally over, he didn’t hesitate.
“Yeah. Completely. Definitely. Honestly, yeah,” Marner said. “I mean, I don’t have to talk about it anymore. I’m sure those guys are relieved, too, not having to talk about it. Like I said, I appreciated the love throughout that tribute video. Passionate fanbase.”
