In his maiden postseason wearing the Vegas sweater, Mitch Marner simply refused to be stopped. On an evening destined for a spot among the greatest playoff games the league has known, the winger delivered a career-defining showing.
Long knocked for his playoff production back in his Toronto days, Marner turned the page Saturday night, notching the speediest hatty the title round has ever seen. He buried a natural three-goal set across a 6:10 window during the middle twenty, a dizzying run that lifted Vegas to a 4-0 cushion heading into the closing frame of the third game.
On Vegas' opening marker, Marner picked up a second assist, then potted his own initial tally at the 10:42 mark of the middle stanza. With William Karlsson whiffing on a try, Marner corralled the free puck and sent a spinning, no-look backhander toward the goalmouth; the puck glanced off the body of William Carrier before sneaking behind goalie Frederik Andersen.
Marner opens his Game 3 account
That fortunate strike came roughly 13 months after the play that essentially ended Marner's run in Toronto — a poorly timed spin-around backhander that handed Florida a tally during a lopsided 6-1 playoff defeat. The moment endured thanks to a now-famous meltdown from die-hard Leafs follower Steve Dangle, whose on-camera unraveling captured Marner's miscue.
A mere 3:50 afterward, the winger lit the lamp again, taking a sharp Brayden McNabb feed off the rush and then dragging the puck to his backhand to beat Andersen.
The marker stood as his 27th playoff point for Vegas — already the franchise's biggest single-spring point total in its brief history.
Marner's middle tally of the hatty
At 29 years old, he put the finishing touch on his record-setting evening 2:20 later in the middle frame, springing free when Tomas Hertl sprung him with an outlet. Once across Carolina's line, Marner elected to tee up a slapper from the upper edge of that right circle, sending it high past the netminder toward the far corner.
Marner completes the three-goal burst
Per Sportsnet Stats, not since Peter Forsberg did it for Colorado in 1996 had any skater scored three times in one frame of the title round, which makes Marner the first to repeat that feat. Before this season, his peak goal output across a single spring in Toronto had been three — a figure he matched within a 6:10 stretch of a single Vegas game.
The mark for the speediest three-goal flurry in a title-round game had been Maurice Richard's: he lit the lamp three times over a 6:21 span with Montreal in 1957. By a slim 11-second margin, Marner surpassed it.
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Speaking with ESPN between the second and third periods, Marner said he couldn't pull it off solo, praising how in sync all five skaters had been. He said his line's play had impressed him, particularly over the recent months, and that the group simply needed to maintain its aggressive, low-in-the-zone approach and cash in on chances when they came.
Marner — whose spring haul now sat at 28 points (10g, 18a) — even drew a prime look at a fourth straight goal, earning a penalty try 4:04 into the period. Having driven Andersen out of the Carolina crease, Marner was turned back at the doorstep, with no one around him, by reserve keeper Brandon Bussi.
Bussi stones Marner on the penalty shot
Unluckily for Vegas, that fourth tally would have proven useful, as the club fell apart late once more, coming undone in the final twenty for a second night in a row.
Behind 4-0, Carolina launched a ferocious rally, lighting the lamp three times within 39 seconds — the quickest such trio any side has produced in a title-round contest, surpassing the earlier 56-second standard set by Montreal in 1954.
Vegas weathered that opening barrage but couldn't protect its lone-goal margin and close it out. Inside the final two minutes, with 1:42 showing, Andrei Svechnikov jammed home a puck on Carter Hart, evening the score and pushing things to overtime. Ex-Capitals pivot Nic Dowd inadvertently guided the disc over the line after barreling Nikolaj Ehlers backward into his keeper.
Svechnikov forces OT with 1:42 to go
The opening extra session produced no goals, both squads visibly drained after a chaotic hour of regulation. In the end, Vegas caught yet another favorable carom 5:38 into the second extra period, stopping Carolina short of completing the rally.
Golden Knights blueliner Shea Theodore — whose penalty had set up Carolina's equalizer — fired a drive from up top that ricocheted off the end wall, slipped past Hurricanes winger Jordan Martinook, deflected off Bussi's skate, and rolled into the vacated cage.
Theodore ends it in 2OT, aided by Martinook
Carolina was bidding to be only the second franchise ever to take a playoff contest after staring down a four-goal-or-greater hole in the closing twenty. That single prior case dates to 1982, when L.A.'s Kings knocked off Edmonton in a game later christened "The Miracle on Manchester." Los Angeles was behind by five with none of its own through the third of that Smythe Division Semifinals affair, then prevailed 6-5 once overtime arrived.
Per ESPN's Greg Wyshynski, the leaguewide mark in such Final spots now stands at 0-109 whenever a team enters the third behind by four-plus. Even bigger, WWE star Danhausen keeps intact his flawless record for jinxing sports clubs after collecting plenty of human currency to put a hex on Carolina ahead of the opening faceoff.
Vegas now holds a two-games-to-one edge heading into the fourth game on Tuesday evening, serving once more as host at its home barn before the series heads back east to Raleigh, where a fifth installment awaits.