It’s Become Clear There is Unaired Dirty Laundry From Marner’s Time in Toronto

With each interview and comment from within the Vegas Golden Knights organization, it’s becoming increasingly clear there’s a story involving Mitch Marner that hasn’t fully come out yet. While his focus remains on the playoffs and a Stanley Cup Final matchup with Carolina, there’s lingering tension from his time in Toronto—too much smoke for there not to be some fire.

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First, it was Marner saying that he “had some dark times” in Toronto. There were also his comments about his new teammates not turning on each other when times are hard. Everyone took that for what it probably was, some underlying resentment for how things went as part of the Maple Leafs while he was there.

On Monday, it was GM Kelly McCrimmon saying that Marner is succeeding, in part, because the team around him is better. He’s not being asked to do it all. That means he’s also not being blamed when he doesn’t.

Then, it was Jack Eichel’s turn.

“Mitch has opened up to me about some of the things that he went through and I’ve opened up to him about some of the things I went through. I think it’s probably good for both of us to have done that,” he said. “Mitch is a big boy. He’s got some scar tissue to show for it. I don’t like people saying bad things about him because I care about the guy.”

He added that he feels Marner was treated unfairly during his run in Toronto. “As a teammate and a friend of his, and somebody that cares about him and his family, of course I do. I think the world of Mitch. Anybody that has negative or bad things to say about him, obviously I disagree with, because I think highly of him.”

Marner has suggested he’ll let the cat out of the bag at some point. “I’ll talk about that in the coming weeks,” he said, making sure everyone knew his goal was to stay focused on the games. He was referring to his dark times and “a real mental grind,” comments that have more than a few analysts and fans wondering about what he’s not saying.

When the Stanley Cup Final is over, expect a lot more clarity about what really went on and why Marner felt the need to make a change. He’s said he doesn’t want to live in the past, but he’s dropped far too many clues to assume he’s not going to spill the beans at some point.

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