“Can we go tonight?” the message read.



It was around 9 p.m. when Mitch Marner’s plane touched down in Toronto, but he wasn’t headed home to unwind from a “Vegas weekend” — which included spins through all the glitzy hotels on the Strip, the Michael Jackson Cirque de Soleil experience, and a Patrick Marleau-endorsed show at Caesar’s Palace. Nor was he off to party, as any other 21-year-old pro athlete might with time to spare in the offseason.



Instead, Marner was planning to hit the gym. He fired a text message to his long-time performance coach Dan Noble.



Noble has trained Marner since he was a skinny, long-haired 13-year-old who liked to dance, munch on Skittles, play hockey and do anything he could to tweak his coach — like declaring his intent to arrive one minute before the 8:30 a.m. workout.



But this time it was all business and Noble was all for it.



“Yeah,...