Marner's hero moment comes with assist from Crosby in Canada's OT victory

MONTREAL — Mitch Marner’s hero moment came via an assist from his hero.

It’s a script even Hollywood might have difficulty grasping.

But that’s the way Marner’s fantasy scenario played out Wednesday, one in which he scored the biggest goal of his career, of his life, in a building in which he is usually booed.

Seconds after he snapped in the winning goal at 6:06 of overtime to give Canada a dramatic 4-3 victory against Sweden in the opening game of the 4 Nations Face-Off, he tried to process it all. As the Bell Centre crowd erupted and his euphoric teammates mobbed him, he thought about growing up idolizing Sidney Crosby, wearing his No. 87, and dreaming that maybe, just maybe, he’d be a difference maker while representing his country one day as Crosby had so often done.

And now, here he was, realizing that all that had come true.

“If you would have told an 8- or 10-year-old Mitch Marner that he’d score an overtime goal in a Canada jersey assisted by Sidney Crosby, a guy he looked up to since day one, ya, it’s pretty crazy,” Marner said.

Even crazier, in Crosby’s mind, was the fact that he already was on the bench when the puck entered the net. The Canadian captain had made a back pass to a charging Marner in the neutral zone before jumping off the ice for a line change.

“I was really happy to see him put that one in,” Crosby said. “We had some great looks. And you know, I’ve got to know him over the years. He’s a special player who brings a lot to the rink every single day.

“It was a huge goal for us.”

It was the end of a surreal night for Marner, one punctuated by the fact that he ignited roars of support from a Bell Centre crowd that normally showers boos on Toronto Maple Leaf players like him.

Only this time there was a red-and-white maple leaf logo on his chest, not the normal blue one.

“I really tried to enjoy the moment, to be honest,” Marner said. “The building was rocking. It was nice to have them cheering for me than against me.

“It was a great play by Sid. He carried the puck all the way up the whole ice. I just tried to get space off him, keep my feet going, and get a shot.”

He did exactly that, beating Sweden goalie Filip Gustavsson to the far side.

For Canada coach Jon Cooper, it could not have happened to a better player or person.

Cooper has been a fan of Marner ever since he coached him at the 2017 World Hockey Championship where they helped Canada win a silver medal. They subsequently have often been seen chatting after games between Marner’s Maple Leafs and Cooper’s Tampa Bay Lightning.

“When you’re that size (6-foot, 180 pounds), you need to be unique at something,” Cooper said. “You have to be better than everyone else at something. And if you really watched that game, the plays he made in tight, the plays he made in traffic, it shows how smart he is.

“He’s not the fastest kid on the ice. He doesn’t have the hardest shot on the ice. He doesn’t do a lot of things better than a lot of guys on both teams do better than him. But it’s really hard to sit here and say: 'Well, was there a better player?'

“He puts himself at that level the way he thinks the game, the way he processes the game at such a high level and high rate of speed. That’s why he’s the player he is. I’ve watched him close up, I’ve had playoff series against him, I’ve watched what he can do. There’s not too many players that can excel at power play, penalty kill, at 5-on-5 and at 3-on-3. He can do it all.

“I’ve watched this kid grow up from what he was as a young kid to what he is now. And he keeps on getting better.”

As Marner left the podium after his postgame media availability, he took time to look at the pink bracelet on his right wrist.

It was given to him by Hayden Foulon, who was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia when she was 22 months old. Hayden met Marner, who was playing for London at the time, when he toured the Children's Hospital at the London Health Sciences Centre in 2015.

They became fast friends, with Marner calling Hayden his "hero" in November 2018. Four months later, he treated Hayden and her family to a Maple Leafs game for her seventh birthday, presenting her with a cake afterward.

Sadly, on Oct. 20, 2019, Hayden lost her battle with cancer.

“She would have loved what happened tonight,” he said in reflection.

On this, the most special of nights for Mitch Marner, an entire country certainly did.