toronto – of all the youthful stars populating the toronto maple leafs’ lineup, no one appears to be having a better time than mitch marner.

In 45 games, the jocular rookie has chest-bumped and hockey-hugged his way to the top of the nhl’s rookie scoring leaderboard, maintaining a “calm and fun” attitude on the ice that infects even his most veteran teammates.

The 19-year-old winger secured his 39th point of the season with a first assist on nazem kadri’s power-play goal monday, moving past teammate auston matthews to take hold of both the rookie scoring lead and toronto's team lead in points. He also retains the lead in assists (28) in both places, as he has most of the season.

While in many ways the first half of his rookie season has been an undeniable success on the offensive side, marner says there is still plenty of room for improvement. As far back as development camp he has stressed the need to develop more of a shoot-first mentality.

“that’s still one of my bigger problems, feeling like i always need to make one more pass instead of shooting,” he said tuesday. “i’m trying to get better at it. [james van riemsdyk] and [tyler] bozak tell me to shoot it more. But it’s a habit that’s always been around me and i’m trying to break it.”

a propensity to pass served him well in the ohl, where marner tallied 205 assists and 96 goals in his three seasons with the london knights. He became a memorial cup champion last season while sweeping every mvp category along the way.

But in the nhl, where secondary scoring chances are critical, the pretty pass or jaw-dropping dangle doesn’t always get the job done.

“i think mitch can dominate more and more,” said coach mike babcock. “sometimes we think coming from other leagues, because you can pass the puck and make all these cute plays…it just doesn’t happen enough in the national hockey league. So simplifying his game and shooting the puck more is going to help him. When he gets more and more confidence in his shot, he’ll shoot the puck way more.”

marner has been working on that shot a long time. These days he comes to practice early and stays late, huddling around the net fielding passes he can fire over and over again into the mesh.

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