Marner’s One-Year Turnaround Puts Stanley Cup Within Reach

Mitch Marner spent a year in a very different kind of spotlight, and now he is staring at the sport’s biggest prize from arm’s length. The contrast is the whole story here - one season can change the temperature around a player, a franchise, and everybody with a stake in the room. Toronto has lived through enough postseason angst to know how fragile these moments are, and Marner’s rise back into the center of it all gives this run real edge.