After swapping one maple leaf for another and sharing a dressing room with his boyhood hero, Mitch Marner figured he’d packed more than enough pinch-me moments into these first few days with Team Canada.
Then Sidney Crosby found him on a reload in overtime and put the puck on his stick as he gathered speed through the neutral zone, and that set the stage for a moment that was literally years in the making for the 27-year-old winger.
Marner secured a massive 4 Nations opening victory for Canada on Wednesday when he stared down Erik Karlsson and neatly tucked a shot over Filip Gustavsson’s blocker. That froze the clock at 6:06 and sent the Bell Centre into a frenzy. But it also brought a seldom-seen level of emotion out of an all-world player who has perhaps endured the worst of the Toronto Maple Leafs’ repeated playoff defeats over the years.
“I mean, you tell 8- or 10-year-old Mitch that he’s scoring an overtime goal assisted by Sidney Crosby, a guy he looked up to since Day 1, yeah, it’s pretty crazy,” said Marner, his voice growing hoarse after the 4-3 victory. “And I’m sure my family’s gonna be very excited about that one, and it’s gonna be a really cool thing to have now.”