Thursday night marked the third time that Mitch Marner has played against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Marner still hasn’t lost to his former team while now suiting up for the Vegas Golden Knights.
The Golden Knights pulled out a 4-3 victory in a shootout to ensure that Marner is now 3-0 lifetime against the team that he left before last season.
The ending wasn’t a happy one, as Marner had made it clear he wouldn’t sign a new long-term contract in Toronto.
The Maple Leafs technically traded him, a sign-and-trade, to get a bit of value back for having to deal away their two-way star.
Marner then went to Vegas and had a fantastic season, particularly in the playoffs, while the Maple Leafs stumbled through a bumpy 2025-26 — that did at least have a happy ending when they won the NHL Draft lottery and the right to take Gavin McKenna at No. 1 overall.
Last season, both times Marner was on the ice against Toronto, Vegas won by one goal, and that trend continued on Thursday night.
How’d Mitch Marner Do?
Marner himself was quite active in a game that also included overtime, playing 24 minutes and 10 seconds of ice time.
He had one point, an assist, and was in total a minus-1.
Marner fired five shots and had a hit with a pair of takeaways.
It was far from the biggest day among the Golden Knights, but Marner did finish one off the team-high in shots, as Jack Eichel had six.
Marner did get a shot in the shootout, but he missed it with the backhand wide right.
How Golden Knights Beat Maple Leafs
The breakdown of this game was quite bizarre.
The Maple Leafs started it off by scoring three goals in the first nine minutes. Jack Roslovic, Easton Cowan and Nick Paul all got tallies to put Toronto up 3-0 after 8:37 of game time.
Mark Stone got a goal back for Vegas late in the first period to pull within 3-1.
Then 1:12 into the second, Brett Howden scored to make it 3-2. Three minutes after that, Jack Eichel converted a rare penalty shot for Vegas to tie it 3-3.
And then for the last 36 minutes of regulation, and all of overtime, there wasn’t another goal scored.
In the shootout, Braeden Bowman and Kirill Marchenko each scored in the first round, but then three sets of players missed for each team — Eichel, Shea Theodore and Marner for Vegas; Auston Matthews, William Nylander and McKenna for Toronto.
Trevor Connelly scored on the backhand to make it 2-1 Vegas in the shootout, and Adin Hill denied John Tavares to end it.
Vegas is now 4-1-0, while Toronto is 2-2-1.
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