Concern Over Mitch Marner’s Fit with the Vegas Golden Knights?

Adding Mitch Marner to a Golden Knights team that won the Pacific Division in two of the three years prior created expectations that Vegas would cruise its way through the 2025-26 regular season, poised to once again win the division and make a run at another Stanley Cup.

They very well still could do that, but with just over a month left in the season, the Golden Knights sit second in the weak Pacific and are not even a sure thing to make the playoffs. It’s hard to explain why such a star-studded team has lost six more games than it’s won this year, though according to one team reporter, it might simply be because the mix of these stars—specifically Marner—doesn’t quite fit.

Ken Boehlke of SinBinVegas recently appeared on Real Kyper and Bourne, where he dissected Marner’s play with his new team, which he says has sometimes left you wanting more.

Boehlke said:

“I really thought you’d get more dominance more often. There are certain times where you do see it, there are certain times where he does take over the game, and really is key in every single situation they get the puck over the offensive blue line. But then there’s other games, and it’s like, ‘Is Mitch playing tonight?’ And to me, you would have thought for the amount of money they spent for what the plan was, and then went out and bought a scorer—or at least an assister, I guess is probably more likely—and they’re not scoring. They have scored 13 goals in the last seven games. So they’re still trying to kind of figure out exactly how he fits, and again, kind of similar to what I said at the beginning, 65 games in, there might be an argument that it doesn’t fit that well,”

The 28-year-old Marner, of course, signed an eight-year, $96 million contract with Vegas upon being acquired in a sign-and-trade from the Toronto Maple Leafs this offseason.

While the fit may not be perfect, he’s still been productive to the tune of 67 points (19 goals, 48 assists) tallied across 65 games played in his first season as a Golden Knight.