{"id":722189,"date":"2026-06-08T02:36:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T02:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/722189\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T02:36:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T02:36:09","slug":"marner-continuing-to-show-just-how-special-he-is-with-cup-final-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/722189\/","title":{"rendered":"Marner continuing to show just how ‘special’ he is with Cup Final performance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mark Messier<\/a>, a six-time Stanley Cup champion, won the Conn Smythe in 1984 with the Edmonton Oilers. He was at T-Mobile Arena on Saturday as part of ESPN\u2019s coverage of the Final and was captivated by Marner\u2019s play.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpecial player,\u201d Messier told NHL.com, echoing Hunter\u2019s sentiments. \u201cYou can\u2019t teach what he has. His instincts, his skill set. Teams through their whole existence are looking for players like that. What I\u2019m seeing right now, whether it be Wayne Gretzky<\/a> or Mario Lemieux<\/a> or anyone else, players like that, that\u2019s what teams are looking for.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere\u2019s the thing, too. He said after the game he couldn’t be doing this without his teammates. That\u2019s what\u2019s happening with he and the Knights right now. They have a big strong team and can put him in positions to do something special. And he\u2019s having an amazing playoffs because of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can see his hockey IQ, but you can also see how incredibly strong he\u2019s become on the puck. He\u2019s not a big guy, but it\u2019s something he\u2019s worked on. He knows how to leverage his weight and get under people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Messier said the quality and depth the Golden Knights have is one of the differences for Marner compared to the Maple Leafs.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it\u2019s also a learning process in the playoffs,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd it takes time to do that, to learn how to deal with the situations where the sole purpose of the other team is to take you down. If you think you\u2019re going to come to the playoffs and do what you did during the regular season and stay on the perimeter and set people up and not get to the inside, well, it\u2019s not going to happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got to learn all that. You\u2019ve got to fail. You\u2019ve got to feel the heat. You\u2019ve got to get the criticism. And it\u2019s got to hurt. You\u2019ve got to feel the sting. He did (in Toronto), and he\u2019s learned from it. And it\u2019s made him a better player. You\u2019re seeing that now. He\u2019s producing special moments.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s been doing that for the past 16 months, dating back to his time while representing Canada at the 4 Nations Face-Off in February 2025.<\/p>\n

He opened that tournament by scoring the overtime winner in a 4-3 win against Sweden, then closed it out by setting up Connor McDavid<\/a> for the championship-winning goal in a 3-2 overtime win against the United States.<\/p>\n

Then, at the Winter Olympics in Milan this past February, he scored the overtime winner for Canada in a dramatic 4-3 victory against Czechia in the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not surprised what he\u2019s doing right now based on what I saw on the world stage,\u201d New York Islanders coach Peter DeBoer, who was an assistant with Canada at both the 4 Nations Face-Off and Milan Olympics, said on Sunday afternoon. \u201cWhen you put him with the best of the best, he was still rising to those occasions. Every time in those tournaments when we were looking for someone to get the job done, there he was.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe beauty of Mitch Marner is he checks so many boxes. He produces offense, he kills penalties. He can be out there in the last minute with a lead because he can block shots, he can be out there in the last minute when you\u2019re trailing because he can help you score. He can play center, he can play wing. The versatility makes him such a special player.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Oilers forward Zach Hyman<\/a>, who was Marner\u2019s teammate with the Maple Leafs from 2016-2021, it\u2019s just Mitch being Mitch.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a pretty good\u00a0player,\u201d Hyman said during a phone interview on Sunday. \u201cI don\u2019t know that he\u2019s necessarily better this year than any other year. He\u2019s just Mitch. He\u2019s a phenomenal player.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe longer you go\u00a0in the playoffs, the more chances you have to be comfortable and just play. If you\u2019re only in the first round, it\u2019s a short window to do anything. He\u2019s obviously excelled in Vegas. He\u2019s setting records because his team has gone deep and he\u2019s playing the way he usually does.<\/p>\n

\u201cCerebral. Amazing\u00a0hockey sense. Great teammate, great person, great player. Elite passer. He makes the game easy when you play with him.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpecial player.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mark Messier, a six-time Stanley Cup champion, won the Conn Smythe in 1984 with the Edmonton Oilers. He…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":722190,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-722189","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\/722189","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=722189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/722190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=722189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=722189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=722189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}