Marner breaks down setup on McDavid’s overtime winner for Canada
Connor McDavid got the glory for scoring, but Canada’s overtime winner in the 4 Nations championship game wouldn’t have happened without his teammates’ efforts — especially Mitch Marner.
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Connor McDavid got the glory for scoring, but Canada’s overtime winner in the 4 Nations championship game against the Americans wouldn’t have happened without his teammates’ efforts — especially Mitch Marner.
After Canada defenceman Cale Makar rimmed the puck along the boards in the USA zone, Marner deflected it from his skate to his stick before setting up McDavid, who fired a shot over goaltender Connor Hellebuyck for the win.
Asked about the sequence during Hockey Night in Canada on Saturday, Marner told the Sportsnet panel, “Well, first off, the face-off, we’re trying to kind of run like an F3 high kind of play. McDavid got through on the face-off and got a shot off to the far side. I kind of just snuck away to the far corner.”
With both him and McDavid left completely open, the plan fell into place.
“We were kind of just talking about trying to sneak away from their defence, find quiet areas around the ice. I knew Cale didn’t have many options there. We kind of went eye-on-eye with each other there before he got the puck, and I tried to just get myself in a spot that he could get it to easily. … I thought it’d be easier just to put my feet against the wall.
“I work on a lot of stuff throughout the summertime and throughout my life of picking up pucks on the wall with my feet, and I use my feet a lot to my abilities.”
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Clearly, his practise has paid off.
“I thought it’d be easy to pick it up from my skates to my stick, and kind of all in one smooth motion without also having to turn my back to see what was in front of me. … I knew Connor was around the slot area when I looked up, get the puck and tried to find him in a scoring chance. And luckily enough, he did the rest with that.”
Marner also set up Sam Bennett’s game-tying goal in the second period, making it 2-2. His lone goal of the tournament was the overtime winner in Canada’s round-robin matchup against Sweden.
When asked if Canada’s coaching staff — specifically head coach Jon Cooper — gave him any advice that helped him perform at his best, Marner said, “I think just our entire coaching staff, with who was on that coaching staff, just has won a lot of big games, has won a lot of big things. Just the calmness and their presence, just letting us go out there and play our hockey game through every game, you know, we knew every game was gonna be a battle, wasn’t gonna be easy. There’s a lot of ups and downs throughout the games.
“I think just the whole bench stayed even keel throughout the whole thing, just stayed in it with belief with who we had on that team and roster wise. And I think just through the games, you get more belief in yourself to do more things, and you’re out there with such skilled players, so you just want to get the puck in people’s hands, with a good look around the net. You know, I was lucky enough to be able to do that twice, and both times, guys made great plays to score.”
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Marner also called the tournament “great” and “a lot of fun” while sharing how it felt to win with Canada.
“The tournament was definitely a grind, was hard, taxing. No game was just easy to walk into a play. You had to be ready to battle every game. We knew it was going to be very hard, that last one especially, so, yeah, it felt good to celebrate after just knowing that we got the job done in that tournament. … It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to hoist something, so it felt good to kind of have that joy in that moment.
“You battle against a lot of those guys throughout the year and through playoffs and stuff like that. But when you put on the same jersey, and you come together, you know you enjoy those moments with victory.”
