In Sunrise, Florida, Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner practiced their passing, exchanging pucks as the warm-up session ended.
The star forwards of the Maple Leafs seemed oblivious to the surrounding excitement, focused solely on their routine while fans tapped the glass hoping for a souvenir.
This dynamic duo from Toronto consistently maintains that the intense scrutiny and pressure from the hockey-crazed market don`t affect them.
Regardless of whether they acknowledged it, the speculation and criticism reached a peak after the team`s thoroughly poor performance in Game 5 of their second-round playoff series against the Florida Panthers, a loss that pushed the Leafs to the edge of elimination.
Adding to the tension, with Marner`s unrestricted free agency looming on July 1st, Friday`s routine pre-game passing drill could potentially have been the final one for the pair in the Maple Leafs` colors.
However, they ensured that wasn`t the case.
