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Mitch Marner is the kind of teammate who attracts everyone.
Like the other morning in Columbus, he went on the sidewalk on an electric scooter, closely followed by Jake Gardiner. It was a particularly unique choice of transportation for the Toronto Maple Leafs match day skate since both wore well-tailored suits.
"It's just a fun little thing that we like to do," said Gardiner about the new road tradition adopted by the team members.
It may have been prepared or not by Marner.
"I think so, probably," said Gardiner. "Probably."
The 21-year-old has also experienced a disproportionate amount of fun on the ice. The Leafs soared to 17-8-0, although they missed two-thirds of first-line last year for most of the season. .
There are times when it seems almost too easy. This is the Marner effect.
"He's a guy you want to be with," said defenseman Travis Dermott.
"I think he's found a good pace here and that he's only going to continue to improve," added veteran Patrick Marleau. "It's pretty scary."
The third year striker looks exactly like you were expecting a very talented child playing for his hometown team. There is effortless enthusiasm for everything he does. And some nights when he's at his best, like Monday's 4-2 win over the Boston Bruins, Marner is good enough to make his fans forget how many hundreds they have dropped to sit at Scotiabank.
He attacks the offensive area as a prey looking for a shark, maneuvering in and around defenders without worrying about what they are trying to do to stop him.
"I think that's what you think with all the good players, is not it?" says Mike Babbad. "If you look [Boston], I think you think when 88 [David Pastrnak] get the puck, he plays a different game than everyone else. "
The Leafs coach noted that Marner sometimes felt like he was coming back to London, where he had destroyed the Ontario Hockey League with 302 points in 145 games in his last two seasons, before moving to the NHL.
This reflects the distance traveled in Toronto. It can be downright dominant.
You could see this in the first goal of Monday's meeting when John Tavares created a great opportunity, then disrupted Pastrnak's attempt to clear the ball and sent the puck to Dermott, who beat Bruins goaltender Jaroslav Halak , for his first game of the season. Later, he found Igor Ozhiganov to make it 2-1 after entering a version of the Mohawk Skate ride while circling the net, leaving his body and his pbad options open.
"We're trying to play hard, but he's bouncing off the pace," Bruins coach Bruce Cbadidy said. "He's always coming back, so he's resilient … you have to finish him right now and take his hands off him and make sure you separate him from the puck, otherwise he's not finished."
Marner took a heightened role and ran with him as Auston Matthews was recovering from his left shoulder injury and William Nylander was clearing his way into a contractual stalemate. Playing alongside Tavares and Zach Hyman, he was a huge offensive player for the Leafs and put Connor McDavid third in the NHL's third goal with a three-goal game against Boston.
What is revealing is the league leader in primary aid with 24 to 25 games played, giving him six points ahead of Mikko Rantanen of Colorado and eight on Matt Duchene of Ottawa.
"Excellent vision," said Marleau, who counts Marner among his closest friends to the team.
The biggest change in the third year is more patience. He had a second year crisis early last season and showed himself particularly hard during a November streak when he was held without a point for seven straight games.
"I think it's just different, and now I know that if something goes wrong, when I do not get frustrated, I stay calm and relax," Marner said. "When I receive [the puck] I'm just trying to make the right game and the game simple and if I see something else, I try to do it, obviously.
"But I think confidence is getting better, game after game, as you get to know more and more of your teammates."
The more Leafs badociates get to know Marner, the more they like him.
This is the guy who accidentally interrupted an interview with Hyman last week by singing loudly behind the closed doors of the locker room, and the one who played carpool karaoke with the Marleau family in San Jose.
On the ice, he begins to realize the dreams of Leafs fans who have long been waiting to see a player like this in a team like this.
"What's amazing is that most of us do not have the time or the space, we hit him here and hit him there and pursue him," Babbad said. "Then the really good players seem to have all the time in the world and that's what you're talking about, which is why they just slide all over the rink and it seems effortless and it sounds like fun, and they all have the puck time and you can not understand why.
"They are just better than everyone else."
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