the most loving thing will has ever done for mack is… changing from center to play as wing. coming from a person who has a dedicated position in a team sport, i would never even consider changing my position. and everytime i see will, i’m just so in awe of the selflessness of it. i truly have so much respect for him. thats the biggest declaration of love to me
See, the romantic in me swooned when I found out Will was drafted as a center and willingly switched to wing to play with Mack. And then you add Sheng Peng saying that all they had to tell Will was “the only way you get to play with Mack is on his wing” and he immediately agreed because they love playing together so much? Yeah. That’s insane levels of devotion to me.
But the thing is, it wasn’t just romantic. It was also incredibly smart on both their parts.
Once 2OA Michael Misa entered the picture, Will probably saw the writing on the wall. The Sharks clearly had plans for Misa as 2C and while Will absolutely has the talent for centre, he was still adjusting to NHL pace and had trouble with consistency in his rookie season. So Willmack spent the offseason scheming and essentially hatched the perfect plan: one that not only ensured Will would never get buried lower in the lineup again, but also permanently tethered him to the one player who understands his game on an almost cosmic level.
Because Mack does not talk about Will like he talks about everyone else. This is the same guy who metaphorically grabbed the beats by the collar and said Will is a special player who does so much for the team and just needs linemates who can actually play with him. Which is a rather diabolical thing to imply about the rest of the Sharks, by the way. But Mack has always made it very clear that he thinks he and Will see hockey the same way, read plays the same way, process the ice the same way. He was once asked about Graf’s performance and somehow turned it into another tangent about how he and Will make plays together. They literally gang up on Warso whenever he criticizes their ping-pong passing because, no, apparently the rest of us just don’t understand their vision.
And I think Mack knows something else too: if you want to become truly great, you surround yourself with the best possible players. Lucky for us, Mack fell for Will’s hockey before he noticed anything else about him. Because if Will wasn’t this talented, this creative, this uniquely in sync with him, he would not occupy this much space in Mack’s mind years later.
They genuinely only have eyes for each other on the ice. These are two people who stay up all night talking hockey and custom-make copies of each other’s sticks just to understand what the other feels when they shoot the puck. It’s that serious to them. It was always that serious to them.
So was moving from center to wing a true sign of Will’s devotion? Absolutely. But it was also a very smart hockey decision. Once they realized what they were capable of together, there was simply no universe where either of them was willingly giving that up. Like…watch this video and tell me these two don’t genuinely believe the greatest joy in hockey is getting to play together on the same line.
