The year Mitch Marner became a superstar: Untold stories from the Leafs winger’s final OHL season

Chandler Yakimowicz knows what great talent looks like. He’s played with Auston Matthews, Jack Eichel and Matthew Tkachuk and has seen the confidence that comes with incredible skill.

But what he saw from Mitch Marner during his record-setting 2015-16 season with the London Knights at times defied logic. 

“It was Godly, the way he was able to perform. I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Yakimowicz, a forward with the Knights that season.

Marner, a smallish forward, was known as a creative playmaker. Yet after being drafted fourth overall by the Maple Leafs in 2015 following a breakout 44-goal, 126-point season, he became even more than that, acting as the team’s guiding conscience, playing with uncommon vision and propelling the Knights to one of the most dominant seasons in OHL history.

“It seemed like there wasn’t anything on the planet,” said Yakimowicz, “that could possibly take him down.”

With Marner in the midst of a superstar season with the Leafs, The Athletic looks back at how he was able to take the next step five years ago.

Marner, 18, signed his first entry-level contract and attended Leafs development camp in July, 2015. While he survived the first two cuts in training camp, he was eventually sent back to London for another OHL season.

Chris Martenet, teammate: It was a big year for him to prove himself. 

Cliff Pu, teammate: He just wanted to put on a show every night and help us win. And that’s exactly what he did. Putting on a show, it’s easier said than done. He’s not just a hockey player. He wants to entertain. 

Rick Steadman, assistant coach: There was excitement about him. He had been doing all the little things to get better. Edge work camps, catching pucks, working on his hands, working on his shot. He was just a man getting ready. He had that added swagger to say, “I want to be the best and this is how I’m going to do it.”

Marner was named co-captain with Christian Dvorak and quickly showed his leadership qualities. 

Christian Dvorak, teammate: That year he definitely became more vocal in the locker room. If we ever had a bad period, he was always the one talking. He’d hold everyone accountable, including himself. I’m not a big talker. He did more of that. 

Mike Stubbs, Knights radio play-by-play announcer: You will never sit in silence with Mitch Marner. I have two kids, and he’d always ask me about them. It’s rare that you find a teenager who will do that.

Jacob Graves, teammate: When I got traded there from Oshawa, he was one of the first guys who messaged me, asking if I needed a ride to London because his girlfriend lived in Whitby. That’s not something you see every day, especially from a guy of that calibre. 

Jacob Buch, Knights prospect who did not play that season after being diagnosed with cancer but has since recovered: Everybody wanted to play for him because they thought they could be a part of something with him. 

Growing up, Marner was told he was too small to play in the NHL. After a growth spurt added two inches to his frame, he began the season at 5-foot-11, looking like a changed player.

Rob Simpson, assistant coach: He was physically more mature, stronger and his body was ready to take on the demands of playing on the top line, and many nights he was playing 25 minutes. Having gone through pro camp, seeing how the professionals do things, he brought that understanding of what it takes to be a good player every single day.

Yakimowicz: The year before, he was a little short guy. And then he came in and he was as tall as everyone else. And we’re like, ‘How did that happen?’ Being bigger and stronger, it enabled him to do the things that he wanted to do every night.

Aaron Berisha, teammate: He’s a smaller kid, and he doesn’t really look like a hockey player, for most people. And then he gets on the ice and he’s making plays and seeing guys, and you’re like, ‘How did he see that person?’ His IQ was head and shoulders above any other guy I played with, or against.

Marner would suit up 57 times during the regular season. He was held off the scoresheet just five times. 

Nicolas Mattinen, teammate: There were times when I didn’t expect him to get the pass through to me, and it ended up on my stick. 

Berisha: He came off the boards in a game against Ottawa, made a backhand toe-drag around a guy and went through his legs, roofs it upstairs. Then he does the same thing in the playoffs against Niagara, where he scores a big goal for us. He deked around Vince Dunn, who obviously just won a Stanley Cup with St. Louis, he makes a fake, goes between the legs, dekes guys out and it’s like … Jesus. To have that patience at the top of the circle, not to just grab it and shoot it, goals like that, you’re thinking ‘Holy smokes.’ He wasn’t afraid.

Max Jones, teammate: He was just beautiful to watch.

Stubbs: You hate to say it, but you almost got used to it. Mitch was doing things that you haven’t seen before every single night.  

Simpson: He wants to be playing every other shift. Once you see his cheeks getting rosy, he’s at his best.

Marner wanted to be more than an offensive producer. His teammates followed suit. 

Steadman: If we needed a block on the PK, he was sliding to block it. If he turned the puck over, he’d somehow catch up and take that puck back away. He was really dedicated to the small details that not a lot of people in the stands would see. Teammates love when your top players play defence and do all those little things.

Kole Sherwood, teammate: He really helped me with my defensive play. He was like my mentor. He signed a stick for me at the end of the year and wrote a long message on the blade of it: “If you try as hard as you can without the puck in the D-zone, as you want to score a goal in the O-zone, you’ll make it. The rest is up to you.”  

Ryan Pyette, reporter, London Free Press: I would ask Mitch, “With all this offensive firepower, are you going to score five goals a game?” Mitch said, “No, the teams that win the Memorial Cup win it on defence.” He was always lifting sticks and playing defensively. I think that’s why we thought he was going to be like a Doug Gilmour-type centre. 

Even as Marner’s star grew, his ego did not.

Buch: He reached out right away (after the cancer diagnosis) to show his support and then continued all the way through the season. He texted me more like a friend would. He would continually put tickets aside for me throughout the season.

Berisha: He wasn’t walking around like his shit didn’t stink. I’ve played with guys that walk around with their collars popped up, for example, but for somebody who knew he was that good, he didn’t have that attitude.

Robert Thomas, teammate: Your rookie year, you’re always just feeling everything out. There’s always one or two guys that go out of their way to help you. He stepped up for me. We would talk on a daily basis. It’s something that you really see a lot more at the NHL level, but you don’t really see at the junior level. It was a huge part of my career and made me feel more comfortable, more confident. 

Pu: One practice, I don’t know why, I was just going around being a little shit, and I accidentally slashed Marner in the back of the leg, very hard. I thought he was going to be super angry after practice. But instead, he just said, “Hey, where do you want to grab lunch?” Like nothing happened. He treated all the boys as if they were first round picks of the Leafs, too.

Multiple teammates attest to Marner’s ability to “bring the team together” in a way he never had before, and in a way that far exceeded the normal maturity levels of a teenager.

Aiden Jamieson, teammate: He’d always listen to what all the guys had to say and then take the input of the entire team before going to (Knights head coach Dale Hunter) and telling him what we wanted to do. 

Berisha: He put the pressure on coaches for us. That year we had a lot of team meals, a lot of team movies. We had a ton of team-building stuff, and he was the one who went in the room and would say, “It’s been a tough week of practice, a tough few games on the weekend, we’ve got to go out for dinner.”

And the coach would say, “OK, boys, you can go to Jack Astor’s.” So Mitch would then just say, “Jack Astor’s, 6:30, then movie night, 8:00.” Even though I was older, I would never go up to Dale Hunter and say, “Dale, you think you could let the boys go have a movie night?” But Mitch just had the confidence. A lot of teams underestimate that when you have success, you look behind the scenes at how guys get along. You can have great guys all you want, but if you don’t have guys all pulling the same rope and willing to do things for each other, you’re not going to have success.

Victor Mete, teammate: No one was an outsider, even the younger kids.

Graves: We were playing in Flint, Michigan. And there were no seats left in the locker room. Me and him made it a point, so that all the rookies had seats, to go put our stalls in the bathroom. 

Jones: That team has got to be one of the best teams, relationship-wise, I’ve ever been a part of. It was something special we had.

The Knights’ coaching staff even allowed Marner and Dvorak to run optional morning skates in their tracksuits.

Steadman: Our young guys would be asking, ‘How do we do this, or that?’ And because Marner was such a good kid, he’d say, ‘Hey, Steady, could I go out there and just show them? I want to show this little play and why I do it.’ As a coach, you can tell a player something 100 times, but when Mitch Marner tells you, you listen a little closer.

Jones: We called them “Gitch skates.” That was the way the whole year was. I got asked about it a lot: “Oh my God, are you guys wearing your tracksuits for morning skate?” “Yea, that’s just the way we run it here.”

J.J. Piccinich, teammate: I had a teammate who was playing for Red Deer in that Memorial Cup. He would always tell me he knew that it was over for his team when he walked by our morning skate and saw that we were in our tracksuits and Mitch and Dvorak were running our skate.

Knights assistant coach Dylan Hunter liked to suggest new moves to Marner via video clips.

Simpson: It was a Vancouver game where the Sedin twins had this 5-on-3 play behind the net, where they would bank it off the net and then into the slot. It was a cool little play that we wanted to try. Dylan walked over to Mitch, didn’t even say anything, and as soon as Mitch saw on the screen, he said, “I watched that last night. I was going to bring that up to you. I think we should do that on the 5-on-3.” We started to laugh. We couldn’t bring anything to him because he already had it all laid out.

Even as the expectations grew, Marner balanced his responsibilities by never letting his joy for the game, and for his teammates, dissipate.

Sherwood: We took a dancing class, almost like a breakdancing class. We tried to be backup dancers. We did it to Justin Bieber’s music. That was a fun, fun class. Mitch got a lot of attention in the locker room with his dancing. 

Jones: Hockey was always my main thing, my only thing. But when I saw those guys going to dance classes, I thought, “Damn, these guys are having fun. They’re enjoying each other’s company and doing stuff as a team.” 

Berisha: We ended up doing two lessons. It was one of the funniest things to happen in junior. Mitch wasn’t a bad dancer at all. Our dance teacher got us doing a 45-second choreographed dance together, with a little freestyle at the end for everyone.

Jones: Berisha would try to re-enact Marner’s moves in the room before practice. And they were awful. It just kept everyone in on the same jokes, instead of certain guys being in on jokes. That was something Marner was really good at: keeping everyone in the same loop. But Marner, he was actually a pretty good dancer.

Piccinich: One day he comes walking into the room with a giant red duffel bag with a giant Skittles emblem on it. He just dumped it in the locker room for us. A zillion Skittles. We had a really good practice that day.

Jamieson: He’d just have a big grin on, wearing the hats, eating the Skittles, being goofy.

Jones: He would eat Skittles in between periods. He’d throw Skittles around the room at guys. You might be losing 2-1, but this is how you keep it light in the room because then we’d go out and win the game. 

Mattinen: We had a rookie dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings. We knew the rookies would have to pay, but at dinner, we’re about to pull out our wallets, and he just soaked the entire tab. As the first year guy, you really respect that.

Mete: We’d always play mini-sticks with all the boys in the locker room. He was taking charge off the ice and getting the boys to do some stuff together. We had two nets set up in the dressing room. Two on two, winner stays on. 

Jones: The mini-stick games would get so heated. Marns would always wrestle guys. He’s not going to fight someone on the ice, but he’d play mini-sticks and it’d turn into a huge brawl. It was always Marns starting it. It became routine: During these tournaments, Marns was always fighting somebody. Marns would go run out and grab a pillow from the trainer’s room and start hitting guys.

Pu: He never looked nervous. It’s kind of indescribable. You feel confident going into every game playing with him.

The Knights finished the regular season with the most goals scored in the league and tied with the Otters for first place with 105 points in 68 games. But in their first round series against Owen Sound, the Knights lost Game 2 and a possible series-clinching Game 5 at home, in overtime. 

Leading up to game 6, Marner helped lead a change of attitude.

Berisha: We had a few days off before the playoffs, and a few loose practices, and we probably took them lightly. We didn’t take anybody lightly after that. 

Mattinen: A switch went off after we lost our second game in Owen Sound. Everyone just did not want to lose. The bus ride to Owen Sound changed everything. We kept talking about it, and then we had a meeting, and Marner said, “I refuse to lose another game to those guys.”

The Knights then went on an unprecedented run: They did not lose another game for the final three rounds of the playoffs. They were led by Marner, whose 2.4 points per game remains the third-highest playoff tally in OHL history.

Simpson: It’s a funny feeling being on the bench with a player like that, who is so good. You could be down by three going into the third, and our whole coaching staff just knew we were going to win the game because Mitch and his line was just going to do something exceptional. 

Steadman: There was never a situation that was too big or too small for him.

Sherwood: He was in another league. He was feeling it, and just riding the wave.

Marner, looking back on the season: You’ve got to be ready to play every single night and always look forward to play against the best players.

One of his most memorable performances came in Game 4 of the Western Conference semi-finals. The Kitchener Rangers had a 4-2 lead going into the third period, but Marner scored a third-period hat trick to seal the series win. 

Jones: It was super quiet in the dressing room. And (Marner) just said, “Hey, we’re going to win this game. I don’t know why everyone is so quiet.” Everyone just loosened up. 

Berisha: That was the difference from the year before: his ability to just take games over.

Buch: He set tickets aside for me for Game 3 of the OHL final. And I saw him after, and he pulled me aside and said, “I don’t care what you have to do, just make sure you’re here for Game 4. I’ll have tickets for you and your family but just be here. And make sure you’re on the ice after the game.”

Marner scored seven points in four games in the OHL Final. After being presented the J. Ross Robertson Cup, Marner did not celebrate with teammates, but instead brought the trophy to Buch, standing nearby. 

Buch: I was in the back and all I heard was ‘Buchy, Buchy.’ No hesitation, he picked up the trophy and skated right to me and said, ‘You deserve this moment, kid. Be proud of it.’ 

Mitch Marner hands the Cup to Knights' prospect Jacob Buch who had been battling cancer (as per @RyanatLFPress). pic.twitter.com/p8F7cu9Pcp

— Kathryn Jean (@msconduct) May 12, 2016

The Knights arrived in Red Deer for the Memorial Cup riding a high.

Stubbs: Mitch is one of the kindest, most unassuming individuals. But by the time he got to the Memorial Cup, he had this look in his eyes. He had some business he wanted to finish.

Dvorak: He knew it was his time to lead this team. He knew that we had to win the whole thing, otherwise it was going to be a disappointment for us.

After scoring five points in his first game, Marner would go on to lead all scorers with 14 points in four games, two points off the highest total in Memorial Cup history. The Knights would win the Cup with a thrilling 3-2 win in overtime.

Jones: We were tied going into overtime, and the team was really quiet. And Marns, again, looked around the room and started smirking, and said “Guys, we’re going to win this.” 

L to R: Christian Dvorak, Owen MacDonald, Mitch Marner, Chandler Yakimowicz, Aiden Jamieson. (May 11, 2016. Credit: Aiden Jamieson)

Marner was named CHL Player of the Year. With the Knights’ success that season, coupled with Marner’s status as the face of the Leafs’ future, he had become a star.

Pu: Going into big games, we knew that Mitch had us. That was his biggest attribute as a leader: making everybody feel confident that we’re going to win every game we played. When I was 17, I didn’t really realize what kind of impact it has. But just getting older playing pro hockey, you start to realize more and more what type of leader he was.

Steadman: Anytime we asked him to go pack groceries, do a hospital visit for sick kids or talk to a school, he was all in and never complained. He made sure to act the right way because he said, “I might see a little kid and he might look up to me.” He learned that he could touch other people’s lives off the ice.

Mete: You’d go out with him, and everyone would want pictures. At Jack Astor’s, they had a cartoon poster of him eating a chicken wing. Everywhere you went, there was something about him.

Simpson: You don’t find players like Mitch very often. It’s rare to find a player with that amount of skill, talent and leadership, but also how well he treats people.

Sherwood: He learned to thrive under pressure. Your superstars take that energy and just ignite the fire, take it and run with it. Only so many people are made for that spotlight, and he’s one of them. The way he carried himself, his character, his charisma, his determination, it all fit in one. He was made for the spotlight of being a superstar.

(Top photo: Claus Andersen / Getty Images)