{"id":199587,"date":"2025-10-09T07:27:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T07:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/199587\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T07:27:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T07:27:08","slug":"marner-gets-star-treatment-for-debut-with-golden-knights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/199587\/","title":{"rendered":"Marner gets star treatment for debut with Golden Knights"},"content":{"rendered":"

LAS VEGAS — Mitch Marner<\/a> didn\u2019t end his debut the way he wanted. In his first game for the Vegas Golden Knights, he was stopped in the shootout, sealing a 6-5 loss<\/a> to the Los Angeles Kings at T-Mobile Arena on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

But the forward had two assists in the third period to help give Vegas a two-goal lead, he developed chemistry with center Jack Eichel<\/a> during the night, and you could see the potential for the long term.<\/p>\n

The Golden Knights locked up Marner on an eight-year, $96 million contract ($12 million average annual value) when they acquired him from the Toronto Maple Leafs in a sign-and-trade on July 1.<\/p>\n

Before the game Wednesday, they signed Eichel to an eight-year, $108 million contract<\/a> ($13.5 million AAV) that starts next season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought as the game went on, we settled in, started making plays, finding each other, using our speed,\u201d Eichel said. \u201cI thought we had some good opportunities. There\u2019s things we want to build on, continue to get better at. But there\u2019s some positives to take away from it too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marner received the star treatment in the entertainment capital of the world on opening night — or, as Vegas calls it, “Opening Knight.”<\/p>\n

After showgirls, drummers and cheerleaders marched down the gold carpet and fired up the fans for the players\u2019 arrivals, he stepped out of a white luxury SUV in a black suit with glittery gold pinstripes and buttons.<\/p>\n

He was escorted to an outdoor TNT set to be the only player on the pregame show. As he was fitted with an earpiece, a fan yelled, \u201cWe\u2019re happy to have you in Vegas!\u201d<\/p>\n

Seated to the right of Wayne Gretzky with T-Mobile Arena in the background, he talked about transitioning to the Golden Knights after spending his first nine NHL seasons with his hometown Toronto Maple Leafs. He told Henrik Lundqvist he had more butterflies in his stomach, because everything was new to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the guys have really done a great job of bringing me in and making me feel like I\u2019ve been here for a long time, which has been great,\u201d he told TNT. \u201cBut obviously, the drive to the rink, you see the palm trees. You\u2019ve got the sun. You\u2019ve got the mountains all around you. It\u2019s a bit of a different drive sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS — Mitch Marner didn\u2019t end his debut the way he wanted. In his first game for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199588,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-199587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}