Marner Leads NHL Playoffs With 18 Points as Vegas Reaches Final

Mitch Marner leads the NHL in playoff scoring with 18 points through 12 games, and his new team is still moving. The Vegas Golden Knights advanced to a conference final on Tuesday, putting Marner in the round he has never reached before.

Marner’s Vegas Scoring Run

For Marner, the numbers are the point. He has 18 playoff points through 12 games, and that total has him ahead of everyone else in the league as Vegas pushes deeper into the bracket.

He is set to play in the conference finals for the first time when Las Vegas takes on Colorado. That is a different posture from his years in Toronto, where he spent nearly a decade and was portrayed as a playoff burden.

John Tortorella’s View

John Tortorella pushed back on that reputation a couple of days before this article was published. “That narrative [that Marner is a playoff burden] is a bunch of bullshit.”

He added: “Mitch doesn’t care.”

Marner’s run has already passed the point of comparison that framed his Leafs years. He had nearly as many goals through two rounds this year as he had in his last six postseasons with the Leafs, a sharp split between the pressure he carried in Ontario and the production he has delivered in Nevada.

Vegas And The Final Round

The setting has changed with the player. He was a big deal in Ontario and a big hockey deal in Nevada, where a player can become invisible after walking 100 metres away from the arena. In this playoff run, Marner has been far from invisible.

Vegas now has the conference final in front of it, and Marner enters it as the league’s scoring leader. The Golden Knights have reached a stage he has not played in before, with his production sitting at the center of the push.