Mitch Marner on joining Vegas Golden Knights: 'You want to be in a place where you want to win'

National Post

4 days ago

Family. Winning. Culture. All three have become synonymous with the Vegas Golden Knights through their first eight years in the NHL.
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They matched the attributes on Mitch Marner's list and why he agreed to a sign-and-trade from Toronto to Vegas, ultimately leaving the organization that drafted him fourth overall in 2015, two years before the Knights entered the league.
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'Obviously, the winning regimen they've put up through the last five years, really since they've been in the league,' Marner said during his introductory news conference Tuesday.
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'The living arrangements from talking to (Max) Pacioretty and Reavo (Ryan Reaves) just through the last couple weeks, it seemed like everything was a pretty good fit for my wife and I and our new son.
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'And you know, the great players they have here. It's where we wanted to be.'
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Of course, a US$96 million contract for a maximum of eight years didn't hurt, either.
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Both Marner and Vegas general manager Kelly McCrimmon said it was important to get the deal done before July 1, when Marner would have been eligible to go anywhere else and would have been the most sought-after player beginning at noon EDT.
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'This was a spot that was very high on my list,' said Marner, with his wife Stephanie and three-month-old son Miles in the front row, along with his parents, Paul and Bonnie. 'We wanted to come here and went back to my agent and said I'm open to doing this if we can find a way to do it. A couple hours later Kelly called me and said we got a deal going on.
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Marner joins Vegas' talented and successful core of Mark Stone, Jack Eichel, William Karlsson, Shea Theodore and Adin Hill, which has made the playoffs three years in a row under coach Bruce Cassidy, including winning the Stanley Cup in 2023.
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'You want to be in a place where you want to win,' Marner said. 'That's the whole goal of why we do this, you want to hoist that Stanley Cup. This team has shown that they can do it. I'm lucky enough now to hopefully bring another piece in to help bring it back here.'
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The deal for Marner opened up after Vegas announced veteran defenceman Alex Pietrangelo was stepping away from hockey because his hip injury would require bilateral femur reconstruction that McCrimmon said had 'no guarantee of success.' Pietrangelo going on long-term injured reserve in part paves the way for the Golden Knights to fit Marner in under the salary cap.