Mitch Marner has thrived throughout his NHL career as a playmaker. But the Toronto Maple Leafs’ forward arguably scored the biggest goal of his career Wednesday night at the Bell Centre.
Marner’s goal at 6:06 of overtime carried Canada to a hard-fought 4-3 victory over Sweden in the opening game of the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament before a raucous and capacity crowd of 21,105 spectators.
Marner took a long drop-pass from Sidney Crosby, skated through the neutral zone and over the blue line before unleashing a shot that beat goaltender Filip Gustavsson to the stick side. It was one of eight Canadian shots in the three-on-three overtime, and 28 in total, against Gustavsson, who plays for the Minnesota Wild.
“It was a great play by Sid,” Marner said. “He carried the puck the whole ice. I just tried to get space off of him. He made a drop pass and I tried to keep my feet going and get a shot off quickly.”
Ironically, it was only Marner’s second shot. The 27-year-old, selected fourth overall by the Leafs in 2015, has made a career from feeding the puck to Toronto captain Auston Matthews, playing the supporting actor to Matthews’s leading-man role. While Marner has 71 points in 54 games this season, he has scored a modest 16 goals. And of his 710 career points in 630 games, 500 have been assists.
But for one night, Marner had little difficult playing the hero’s role, not that he was alone.
“If you’re saying that is a confidence-building goal, that kid (exudes) confidence,” Canadian head coach Jon Cooper said. “I thought it was a big-time player making a big-time play. It was fabulous.”
Canada took a 2-0 lead in the first period on goals from Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon and Boston’s Brad Marchand. MacKinnon’s goal, on the power play, came 56 seconds after the opening faceoff — and only 12 seconds after William Nylander was given a high-sticking minor.
After Minnesota’s Jonas Brodin cut into Canada’s lead midway through the second period, Mark Stone of the Vegas Golden Knights restored the two-goal advantage late in the period. But Sweden sent the game to overtime with a pair of scores in the third from Los Angeles’ Adrian Kempe and the Wild’s Joel Eriksson Ek.
Crosby, the ageless 37-year-old Pittsburgh captain, had three assists and was named the game’s first star.
“I could write a book on just my time around Sidney Crosby, in the short little window I’ve had,” Cooper said. “His demeanour on the bench. He says all the right things at the right time. When you need a lift in overtime he’s the one who sets it up. It’s no coincidence, his record when he’s wearing a Canadian jersey. He will go down as the greatest player to have represented his country.”
“I’m amazed but I’m not surprised at all,” Kings’ defenceman Drew Doughty said about Crosby. “He’s a gamer, man. In big situations he plays even better. He did it again tonight. He was probably the best player on the ice.”
If there was a concern heading into this tournament, it revolved around the state of Canada’s goaltending. Cooper might have surprised some by electing to start St. Louis’ Jordan Binnington, overlooking Vegas’ Adin Hill and the Canadiens’ Samuel Montembeault.
While Binnington’s save percentage against Sweden was a poor .885, he was stellar in overtime, thwarting both the Rangers’ Mika Zibanejad and Florida’s Gustav Forsling.
“He (Binnington) played great,” said Doughty. “He made a huge save in overtime and saved the game for us. He’s our guy and he played amazing.”
Binnington has struggled at times this season, going 15-19-4 for the Blues with a .896 save percentage. But he also has produced three shutouts and is known as a big-time player. At age 25, he won a Stanley Cup in 2019, St. Louis capturing Game 7 at Boston.
“It was crispy out there,” Binnington said. “They can snap (the puck) around. You just have to raise your level to their level and be in the moment. But it’s only one game.”
Nonetheless, it was a costly victory for the Canadians, who lost Vegas defenceman Shea Theodore early in the second period with an apparent upper-body injury to his right side after being taken heavily into the boards by Kempe. That left Canada with five defencemen. Cooper announced post-game Theodore’s tournament is over. He won’t be able to be replaced unless the team falls below 18 healthy skaters.