The way Jon Cooper views it, Mitch Marner was made for his Canadian hockey heritage moment on Wednesday night at the Bell Centre.
While Marner wears the Toronto Maple Leafs logo on his chest, he has likely never scored a bigger goal in his career than his overtime marker in Team Canada’s 4-3 victory over Sweden in the opener of the inaugural 4 Nations Face-off in the home of hockey.
“That kid oozes confidence,” Cooper said. “I thought it was a big-time player, making a big-time play at a big-time moment. That’s why Canada has him on this team, he was fabulous.”
It was a spectacular end to a night that welcomed hockey back to the international stage for the first time since 2016 in fine form.
When this four-team tournament wraps up next week in Boston, there likely will be bigger goals for Canada, but this is a moment that Marner will never forget when he looks back on his hockey career.
He took a pass from captain Sidney Crosby and fired the winner by Swedish goalie Filip Gustavsson at 6:06 of the three-on-three OT to secure two points for Canada in a win it badly needed.
It was magical and memorable. Montreal fans were happy to cheer for a player they couldn’t stand most nights of the year when Marner brought them to their feet with a pivotal goal.
“It was super cool,” Marner said. “Tried to just really enjoy that moment after, to be honest. The building was rocking. It was nice to have them cheering for me instead of against me.”
This is the stuff that Marner, who grew up in Markham, used to dream about as a kid. Now, the 27-year-old has a moment he will cherish for the rest of his career and his life.
“You tell eight- or 10-year-old Mitch that he scored an overtime goal assisted by Sidney Crosby, the guy he looked up to since Day 1, yeah, it’s pretty crazy,” Marner said. “I’m sure my family is going to be very excited about that one. It’s going to be a really cool thing that I get to have now.”
Crosby, who led the way with a spectacular performance that included three assists, always does the right thing, so even though he picked up his third helper of the night he was already on the Canadian bench when Marner fired it home because it was time for a line change.
“I was really happy to see him put that one in,” Crosby said. “We had some great looks. And you know, I’ve got to know him over the years. He’s a special player who brings a lot to the rink every single day. It was a huge goal for us.”
Cooper, the head coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning, has always liked the 6-foot, 180-pound Marner since their paths crossed at the 2017 IIHF world championship and won a silver medal together after Sweden won 2-1 in a shootout.
“When you’re that size, you need to be unique at something,” Cooper said. “You have to be better than everyone else at something. And if you watched that game, the plays he made in tight, the plays he made in traffic, it shows how smart he is.
“He’s not the fastest kid on the ice. He doesn’t have the hardest shot on the ice. He doesn’t do a lot of things better than a lot of guys on both teams do better than him. But it’s hard to sit here and say: ‘Well, was there a better player?’”
There were times you didn’t notice Marner in this one while he was mostly playing on a line with a guy named Connor McDavid as well as Sam Reinhart of the NHL champion Florida Panthers. Cooper noted you have to watch for the little things and Marner can be a difference-maker.
“He puts himself at that level the way he thinks the game, the way he processes the game at such a high level and high rate of speed,” Cooper said. “That’s why he’s the player he is. I’ve watched him close up, I’ve had playoff series against him, I’ve watched what he can do. There are not too many players that can excel at power play, penalty kill, at 5-on-5 and at 3-on-3. He can do it all.
“I’ve watched this kid grow up from what he was as a young kid to what he is now. And he keeps on getting better.”
United States captain Auston Matthews, Marner’s close friend and teammate with the Leafs, was happy to see his teammate have success.
“It was cool,” Matthews said on Thursday. “There are so many great players that I’ve been fortunate to play with and I’ve been fortunate to play with him for over nine years now. It was pretty cool to see him get that moment.”