This time last year, Toronto Maple Leafs fans hoped that they would win the draft lottery and the opportunity to select Toronto-area wunderkind Connor McDavid. Slated to draft fourth, they had the fourth-best odds to win; but the Edmonton Oilers–much to the dismay of just about everyone outside of the northern Alberta city–moved up to first overall instead.
Toronto fans were disappointed, but the insanely deep 2015 NHL Draft class offered plenty of promising prospects in that top-five, all capable of first-line/pair NHL duties in the future. They ended up picking another native of the Greater Toronto Area, Mitch Marner, who grew up idolizing the team that picked him and wearing number 93 as a tribute to former Leafs captain Doug Gilmour his entire life.
Marner, who has been criticized in the past for his size, is essentially a creative offensive machine. One would think that a fairly lanky 18-year-old would get pushed around, but he is as talented and slippery a player as Patrick Kane, able to get by defenders and always find a passing (or shooting) lane.
When he was drafted, Marner expressed overwhelming excitement at being drafted by his hometown team, and it has clearly motivated him this year.
After a 116-point regular-season campaign in 2015-16, Marner has put up 29 points (11G, 18A) in 11 games for the London Knights in the 2016 OHL playoffs. Though the Knights struggled in the first round against a fairly inferior opponent in the Owen Sound Attack, Marner and his teammates quickly returned to their winning ways in the second round when they swept the highly-touted Kitchener Rangers. It was a series victory that featured plenty of offense, especially from Marner himself. He scored 13 points in the four-game series, including a four-goal, five-point performance in Game 4.
Through 11 #OHL playoff games last year, Connor McDavid had 16 goals, 30 points. Mitch Marner has 11 goals, 29 points in 11 games now.
— Ryan Pyette (@RyanatLFPress) April 21, 2016
The Western Conference Final matchup between Marner’s Knights and the powerhouse Erie Otters has been highly-anticipated since before the postseason even began. Anyone who follows junior hockey saw it coming, and now that it’s here, the two teams have already put on quite the offensive display in Game 1. Marner scored a goal and added three assists, helping his team to a 7-4 victory over their fierce rivals. Drawing first blood in this series will likely appear to be a difference-maker in retrospect, and the Maple Leafs prospect is just three wins away from an OHL Final appearance in what very well may be his final shot at an OHL title.
The Toronto Maple Leafs were awful this year, and that was partly by design. No, that does not mean that they tanked, but rather that they gave the majority of their top prospects an extra year of development in junior/minor league competition. With Lou Lamoriello in charge and Brendan Shanahan, Kyle Dubas and Mark Hunter also in key management positions within the organization, patience has been (and will continue to be) preached with prospects. Although they would probably love to give Marner another year or development, it seems wisest to get him on the team for the entirety of the 2016-17 NHL season.
The forward will not be eligible to play in the AHL next year, so it’s back to junior or it’s graduation to the NHL, the latter of which seems to make the most sense for all parties involved. But Marner has been keeping a level head about the whole situation, focusing more on the present than on the future.
“There’s always a chance to come back one more year,” Marner told The Toronto Star. “You can’t be thinking about that. You’ve got to think about the here and now. There’s a game coming up. You have to think of that, not think ahead. If you think ahead, it reflects on your game. You don’t play your best.”
There’s a slim chance the Maple Leafs send their prized prospect back to junior for another year, as he has accomplished just about everything possible on an individual level. Now, they just hope that he can go out on top as an OHL–and possibly even a Memorial Cup–champion.
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