Mitch Marner on taking the 'cutest Leaf' title back from Michael Bunting - "I don't think he ever took that away from me"

Mitch Marner of the Toronto Maple Leafs has held the title of "Cutest Leaf" for quite some time. But in recent months, Michael Bunting emerged as a new challenger.

However, Marner, who is renowned for his wit and good humor, recently asserted that he never really ceded his title to Bunting, who signed with the Carolina Hurricanes earlier this month.

In a light-hearted discussion with CKIS-FM, Marner said he felt he had the title all the time, but was willing to give it to Bunting as a gesture of goodwill.

“Yeah, it's great. I don't think he ever took that away from me," said Marner. "If I'm gonna be honest, but we'll let him have that fame. I guess. We got a lot of cute guys on our team though. I don't know. So, you know, I'll take I guess I'll take honorary."

Marner added:

"It's gonna be you know, I think Reavo (Ryan Reaves) might have a competition there. He's always got his shirt off in his interviews after matches. So it'll be funny to see. I think I already said he's gonna bring that to Toronto. So I'm very interested to see how our PR team is going to handle that one. But I'm excited to watch it.”

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Mitch Marner on players being removed from Maple Leafs’ group chat

Mitch Marner was recently asked about the removal of players from the group chat after leaving the Maple Leafs. He said it was the responsibility of the team captain to ensure it happened.

“That is a great question. I actually haven't really looked too much into our group chat. But if they didn't remove themselves right away, I'm sure JT (John Tavares) was the one to remove them pretty quickly. So that's the captain's role. And he has to be that guy.”