Marner finds playoff juice to help Golden Knights punch ticket to Round 2

SALT LAKE CITY — Held without a goal through the first five games of his first playoff series with the Vegas Golden Knights, Mitch Marner chose the perfect time to finally light the lamp. 

His first goal of the series, scored late in the second period of Game 6 against the Utah Mammoth Friday night, gave the visitors a little breathing room and ultimately served as the game-winner to secure the Golden Knights’ 5-1 victory and a trip to Round 2. For Marner, it was a goal very much worth the wait, a stunner both in style — about as perfect a slapshot as could possibly be unleashed — and reception, doing much to quiet the home crowd, and his critics. 

You could almost see the monkey being lifted from his back as Marner celebrated. One of the game’s most talented playmakers in the regular season, Marner’s post-season scoring woes have been well-documented from his nine-year tenure with the Toronto Maple Leafs. With each Golden Knights playoff game that passed without a goal from No. 93 this round, it felt as though perhaps old afflictions might re-emerge, as though a familiar wall was starting to build, brick-by-brick, between him and the back of the net. And after five games of butting up against it, Marner received a pass from Ivan Barbashev, skated in close, and unleashed a slapshot from the faceoff dot that blasted right through it, scoring in a series-clinching game for the first time in his career.

“I’ve had a couple opportunities in that kind of same area that I just have missed on, and that’s why I kind of just decided to quickly wind one up and see if I could get a clapper through,” Marner explained post-game, describing his marker that put Vegas up 2-0. “Lucky enough, it went through and found a hole and found the net.”

Then, he did it again. With less than eight minutes remaining in the third frame of what was then a 3-1 game, Marner potted a snapshot on the power play to put a dagger in Utah’s hopes of third-period surge. That goal, a rare PP marker for his club in this series, gave Marner his third point of the night after he’d also assisted on Brett Howden’s game-opening goal. 

Marner had been far from a no-show up to this point in the series. His efforts didn’t always earn a place on the scoresheet, though, and when they did, they came in the form of four assists through the first five games of the series.

“Mitchy’s been doing a lot of little things people don’t understand — some small little plays,” Golden Knights head coach John Tortorella said post-game. “But he had some big plays tonight that everybody can see. So, really good for him, for his confidence, going into the next series.”

Friday marked Marner’s first multi-point playoff game since Game 3 of Toronto’s second-round series against Florida last May and his first multi-goal post-season effort since the spring of 2023. 

“He was great. I think tonight, he was probably at his best,” Colton Sissons said of Marner. Sissons scored early in the third to make it 3-1 Vegas after Kailer Yamamoto got Utah on the board. “We need Mitchy on the scoresheet as much as possible, so hopefully he can take some confidence into the next series.”

This is the Marner the Golden Knights believed they were signing when they inked the star forward to an eight-year contract worth $12 million a season. Was this what Marner envisioned, too?

“I think, this is what I hoped for, for sure — an opportunity to do something special,” Marner said. “When I first got here, I knew it was a special group.”

“All four lines contributed throughout the series,” he continued. “There was different moments that we needed every line to step up and come in big, and every line did that. So, yeah, this is what I what I hoped for.”

The Golden Knights’ victory Friday night sets Vegas’ sights on Round 2 and a date with the Anaheim Ducks, and has the Mammoth looking inwards as they contemplate their first post-season heartbreak. 

“Your failure makes you stronger — you learn from it, it makes you better. But in order to make sure that happens, it has to hurt,” an emotional André Tourigny said post-game. The Mammoth head coach was at a loss for words when asked about the big-picture impact of the season and how it came to a close. “I don’t even want to feel good about it. I want that to hurt, and I want to learn from it. And there will be a ton of things we will unpack and learn and grow — as a coach, as a player, as an organization.”

It’s an organization that in just two years has taken root in the NHL’s newest market and grown exponentially, its identity already woven deeply into the fabric of this city. The franchise has been a Mammoth-sized success from the start, this group of players from Arizona adopted in 2024 by a then-untapped hockey market that welcomed them with open arms and then raised those arms in celebration this spring through what’s been a thrilling first-round series that looked destined to go the distance but ended in six.

Utah’s first playoff run has come to a close, but their window of contention is officially open. 

“It was a hard-fought series. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Andre and his staff. That’s a good hockey team,” Tortorella said. “That’s a team, they’re gonna be reckoned with for quite a while now, as far as some of the kids and skill and speed that they have. So, we’re fortunate, moving on, but I think Andre and his staff have done a fantastic job with that team.”

The team that showed up Friday night looked like a squad that simply ran out of juice. Vegas, meanwhile, has all the makings of a club that’s just heating up for what they hope will be a long run. 

“Now there’s a lot more work to keep going,” said Marner. “So [we’ll] get the rest we need here and be ready for Anaheim.”