Mitch Marner recently sat down with TSN’s Mark Masters to discuss leaving the Toronto Maple Leafs organization this past summer to join the Vegas Golden Knights. The interview covered a lot of ground and quickly caught fire on social media, with some fans saying he was exaggerating while others argued he didn’t deserve what had happened to him.
The interview took place at the Men’s Olympic Orientation Camp for Team Canada, where Marner had been invited. At times, you could see him choked up when reflecting on his time with the Maple Leafs and the difficulty of making the decision to leave.
Marner Opens Up About Leaving
Over the last decade, the Maple Leafs were led by Marner, Auston Matthews, William Nylander, John Tavares and Morgan Rielly. All five were central to both the team’s success and its shortcomings. No one knows that better than Marner, who often became the face of the criticism. He spoke candidly about that, saying:
“For all the negative comments out there, you know there’s so many love comments. The problem is that the love comments don’t come out as much as the hatred ones, and that’s just the way life goes, and that’s the way social media has turned into in a way.”
Marner also acknowledged that he, Matthews, Nylander and Rielly all shared the same journey and “grew together.” He said the hardest part was telling Matthews about his decision.
“The phone call to Auston [Matthews], that was a tough one. He had to get back to Arizona pretty quickly after the season. I was going to try to get a sit down with him before, but it just didn’t pan out with everything happening. That phone call to him was pretty tough. It was pretty emotional. Obviously, we came in together, we did a lot of things together.”
Matthews and Marner will always be remembered as one of the greatest one-two punches in Maple Leafs history. But as Marner admitted, all great things eventually come to an end.
He also reflected on Rielly and Nylander.
“We really came in together and grew together and really leaned on each other for a lot of things,” Marner said. “The market was tough to all of us at times, and we needed to lean on each other. It was tough calling those guys and letting them know what was going to happen. Just the reaction out of both sides was, you know, it sucked, but that’s the way this sport goes…
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