A Marner new and old

The conjecture around star winger isn't going away anytime soon. He hopes he isn't, either

- ROSIE DIMANNO

Maple Leafs winger Mitch Marner would not address his contract situation as training camp opened Wednesday.

Come rain or come shine, come plaudits or slagging, Mitch Marner has always had a bounce in his demeanour.

Usually positive, occasionally twitchy, a jagged edge to his interactions with reporters, particularly when he feels himself the object of undue slights.

On Wednesday morning, facing the full media complement as the players rotated through medicals and official photo sessions at the Ford Performance Centre, there was no bounce evident in Marner. Staring out at the hockey correspondents with palpable leeriness, the eight-years-a-Leaf presented a nearly flat affect, atypically deadpan except when discussing his eagerness for the coming season and his deep love of being a Toronto Maple Leaf.

Amidst all the will-he-or-won’t-he or whither-he speculation, Marner pre-emptively cut off any questions about his contract, which has been an issue of intense conjecture since the Leafs were bounced out of the playoffs by Boston, again, last May. That was not a particularly good series for Marner, maligned especially for failing to inhibit David Pastrnak on the series-spiking overtime goal.

“Obviously there will be some contract questions but I’m not here to talk about that,” Marner declared, straight off the hop. It was the same no-go posture he took at his recent charitable foundation’s fundraiser and at the media thingy where Auston Matthews was publicly invested with the Leafs captaincy, shoving John Tavares out of the frame.