Calm and confident, Mitch Marner playing at new level to start playoffs

During the press conference following Sunday's win over the Ottawa Senators, Toronto Maple Leafs winger Mitch Marner was asked what type of experience he gathered from the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament and his response was "a sense of calmness and confidence" and the 2015 fourth-overall pick was oozing those attributes all night long in Game 1.

There is no hiding the fact that in years past once the playoffs start Marner would tighten up and look fearful, as he would tend to panic and shy away from anything intense which would cause his entire game to stay on the perimeter. It was a common occurrence. However, from the start of this season back in October, there seemed to be a different Marner this year and while his play reverted back to prior seasons during the first couple of games of the 4 Nations tournament, in the championship game he was arguably Canada's best player as they worked themselves to winning the whole thing.

On Sunday night, Marner still looked to have a bit of caution early in the contest as minutes into the first period he had one of his no-look passes in the offensive zone end up right on the stick of a Senators defender that led to an attack and extended stay in the Maple Leafs' zone. But once the club was able to weather the storm those types of plays seemed to leave his game for the rest of the night. Instead of pressing plays that weren't developing, he would hold onto the puck and reassess, which is his biggest strength to his game.

Mitch Marner was shot out of a cannon

While the crowd erupted when Oliver Ekman-Larsson opened the scoring seven minutes into the series, they exploded when Marner put the club up 2-0 on a breakaway goal. With a superb pass from Auston Matthews, Marner broke in alone from center ice. When he originally took the puck, Marner had about a six foot gap on Nick Jensen, which he expanded to closer to 15 feet by the time he put it crossbar and down past Linus Ullmark.

That goal by Marner, was arguably the most important goal of the entire season as not only did it give the Maple Leafs a 2-0 lead in the game, but it could give him the understanding that he will be the biggest factor in the series and nobody can control the game like he does.

As the game carried on, the story was the opportunities that Maple Leafs got on the powerplay, which is something the club has not got in the previous eight seasons. On Sunday night, the Senators went shorthanded six different times, which led to Toronto putting three pucks in the back of the net with the man advantage and looking dangerous on all but one man advantage. Since moving to the five man forward group, the powerplay is completely run through Marner, which led to William Nylander, John Tavares, and Matthew Knies all scoring.

As stated in years past the playoffs has usually been when Marner's game tends to evaporate, however, for this special season, he had the best game of his career. What is even more exciting, is that if Marner can repeat his play on Tuesday night, you can likely count on it becoming a mainstay in his play for the remainder of his career.