MILAN — It was Mitch Marner’s best ever moment wearing a Maple Leaf.
And, snark aside, it might have been the best moment Mitch Marner will ever have on skates at any point in his life.
“Probably hard not to say it isn’t,” Marner said, asked if his backhander 1:22 into overtime to send Canada into the Olympic semifinal, 4-3 over Czechia in an absolute classic, was the biggest goal of his life. “It’s a pretty special one.”
He scored in overtime just over a year ago at the Bell Centre to hand Canada a win at the 4 Nations Face-Off opener against Sweden.
After that one, he said that “eight- or 10-year-old Mitch” would be in disbelief about scoring an overtime goal from Sidney Crosby.
This time was all Marner, roofing the puck from the left post on a chance that seemed to come from nowhere.
This time, there was no Crosby, Canada’s captain having exited the game in the second period after a hit from Radko Gudas.
What would 10-year-old Mitch say now?
“The same kind of emotions. Just shock and excitement and something really cool,” Marner said. “Now it’s even more special. I have my son here with me. He’s pretty young. He probably won’t remember. He’s probably sleeping on mom, but it’ll be something cool to look back at one day with him and just show him where he was and what he was doing in this moment.”
It is a great irony, of course, that Marner — perhaps the single NHLer who has been most derided for failing to perform in the playoffs this century — seems to find it in the clutch when he’s playing for his country.
Leafs fans, after all, practically ran him out of town over his struggles in the postseason.
“I think it’s a Toronto thing,” Mark Stone said, half-joking, half not.
“I thought he wasn’t a big-game player,” Brandon Hagel said. “But he just showed the world.”
Yes he did, and for the second time in as many years with his country on the ropes.
Czechia’s 2-1 lead marked the first time Canada had trailed in best-on-best Olympic competition since the 2010 Vancouver Games, a stunning 805:01 of game time.
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They trailed again with just under four minutes to go, and had Canada lost — in the quarterfinal no less — it would have been treated as a national crisis north of the border.
Even after Nick Suzuki tied the game in regulation, the best chance of overtime was on Martin Necas’ stick, a breakaway that Jordan Binnington denied.
Before you could blink, there was Marner, ending the thing.
“It’s the it factor, man. Mitch Marner’s got it,” coach Jon Cooper said. “I’ve watched it in World Championships, 4 Nations, Olympics. I’ve seen it all out of him. And there’s just never doubt in my mind about throwing that kid over the boards, because he doesn’t disappoint. Sometimes your hair falls out at times, but in the end, he never disappoints.”
