{"id":133178,"date":"2025-09-10T16:27:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T16:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/133178\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T16:27:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T16:27:08","slug":"golden-knights-marner-on-returning-to-toronto-for-first-time-it-will-be-weird","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/133178\/","title":{"rendered":"Golden Knights’ Marner on returning to Toronto for first time: ‘It will be weird’"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the first time in his career, Mitch Marner won’t open an NHL season as a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Now a member of the Vegas Golden Knights<\/a> after a sign-and-trade on July 1, Marner will make his highly anticipated return to Scotiabank Arena on Jan. 23, 2026.<\/p>\n

After his ninth season with the Maple Leafs ended in another disappointing playoff exit, Marner said he’s ready to face whatever comes his way when he returns to Toronto. <\/p>\n

\u201cI know it will be weird walking into the visitors side for once,\u201d Marner said to NHL.com’s Mike Zeisberger <\/a>at the NHL\/NHLPA North American Player Media Tour on Tuesday. \u201cSo, yeah, we\u2019ll see how it goes. I mean, when that moment comes, we\u2019ll take it head-on and see what happens. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe good thing is that I know I\u2019ll be going in there with a lot of guys on my side and 22 guys that are willing to do whatever it takes to win a hockey game. And I know there will be a lot of loved ones in the fans as well in the arena.”<\/p>\n

\"3232 Thoughts: The Podcast<\/p>\n

Hockey fans already know the name, but this is not the blog. From Sportsnet, 32 Thoughts: The Podcast with NHL Insider Elliotte Friedman and Kyle Bukauskas is a weekly deep dive into the biggest news and interviews from the hockey world.<\/p>\n

Latest episode<\/a><\/p>\n

As far as how he feels about his career in Toronto coming to an end?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is what it is,\u201d Marner said to Zeisberger. \u201cI still have a lot of appreciation and love for a lot of people there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two-time all-star winger leaves the Maple Leafs as their fifth-leading scorer in franchise history at 741 points in the regular season on 221 goals (14th) and 520 assists (fourth).<\/p>\n

The 28-year-old\u2019s 521 assists since his rookie season (2016-17) ranks fifth in the NHL, while he ranks eighth with 741 points.<\/p>\n

How does the Markham, Ont., native hope he’s remembered in Toronto? <\/p>\n

\u201cJust a guy that tried, I guess, to help his hometown team accomplish great things,\u201d Marner said. \u201cI tried to wear that jersey with pride and honour every single time I could. Tried to give it everything I had. Unfortunately, we came up short.”<\/p>\n

Marner and the Golden Knights will open the 2025-26 season on Oct. 8 against the Los Angeles Kings, which will officially begin what he calls a “new chapter” in his career.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to be in a place where you want to win,\u201d Marner said when he joined the Golden Knights on July 1. \u201cThat\u2019s the whole goal of why we do this, you want to hoist that Stanley Cup. This team has shown that they can do it. I\u2019m lucky enough now to hopefully bring another piece in to help bring it back here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the first time in his career, Mitch Marner won’t open an NHL season as a member of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133179,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-133178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}