BOSTON – When Auston Matthews was 12 years old, he got on a plane from his home in Arizona and flew across the country for a one-game tryout with a team from Ukraine. He scored three goals in a period. That earned him a spot in the Quebec Peewee tournament.
A couple years later, he arrived at the tryout for USA Hockey’s national development team program. Charlie McAvoy hadn’t heard of him before then and was placed on his team for scrimmages. It didn’t take him long to realize Matthews was special.
“He did the Jason Blake-like spinarama and he didn’t even score,” said McAvoy. “It went wide, he slid it wide, but the goalie was all the way out of the net. He had beaten him pretty good and I just was like ‘Wow, I can’t believe that kid tried that.”’
Matthews was one of the top scorers in the Swiss league at age 18. He played for Team USA at the IIHF World Hockey Championship and starred for Team North America at the World Cup before ever playing an NHL game.
Then he played his first for the Toronto Maple Leafs and scored four goals.
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This brief history of things is important to keep in mind with Matthews and the Maple Leafs facing elimination sooner than they ever imagined on Saturday night. It has subjected the 20-year-old to an unfamiliar level of criticism – particularly in the wake of a flat performance against the Boston Bruins in Game 4, which put the Leafs down 3-1 in the series.
In some ways, it’s a sign he’s truly arrived as a superstar.
There’s a certain mania that descends at playoff time and it seems to come with an undue amount of blame on an individual for the failings of a team. How often was Sidney Crosby doubted and criticized during the seven-year winter between his first and second Stanley Cup?
You don’t hear much of that talk now.
Matthews still has a chance to change the conversation and history tells us that he will, whether it happens now or in the fall when his third NHL season begins. He projected confidence ahead of a must-win game at TD Garden – one where he’ll start with Connor Brown on his right wing rather than William Nylander, a shakeup designed to get more accomplished in the offensive zone while going head-to-head with Zdeno Chara.
“Nothing to lose,” said Matthews. “So you just go out, relax, play our game and do what we’ve done to be successful all season. You’ve just got to outwork the other guys. Those 50-50 battles have been huge and I think so far they’ve done a better job in that area than us.”
His playoff “struggles” have been overblown. Granted, he’s not tilted this series to anywhere near the same degree Boston’s offensive dynamos have – David Pastrnak is the NHL’s scoring leader with 11 points in four games – and Matthews is expected to do that.
He does have one big play under his belt, scoring the winner in Game 3. You saw in his celebration how much that meant to him.
At even strength in this series, Matthews has posted better Corsi and scoring-chance percentages than he did in the regular season. He has 17 shots on goal, already more than he had in six playoff games against Washington last spring.
But the score is 6-2 Bruins with him on the ice at evens. Toronto was ahead 63-31 during the regular season in those situations – meaning that Matthews’ line produced more than one goal at 5-on-5 for every game he played.
Boston has done a good job of keeping his line out of the high-danger areas, which is why Matthews will start Game 5 with two puck retrievers. The instructions for Brown and Zach Hyman are pretty straightforward: Win battles along the wall and find Matthews in the middle.
“I mean they’re a dangerous line, obviously, but you’ve just got to try and play ‘em hard. Play ‘em hard,” said McAvoy, Chara’s defence partner. “When the puck gets on the wall we’ve got to end those plays. We’ve got to be the ones winning the puck battle and getting it out.
“They’re going to get chances. … They’re NHL players, they’re special.”
In Babcock parlance, about the highest compliment a player can be granted is being called a “serial winner.”
Matthews has all of the bonafides to become one of those. It’s why his sweater was the most sold of any NHL player this season and why he’ll eventually be the captain. Unfortunately, the role comes with some drawbacks – namely being blamed heavily for playoff losses while the goaltender with an .880 save percentage and the second-line centre who just finished serving a three-game suspension largely fly below the radar.
But the players? They know.
“He’s a competitor,” McAvoy said of Matthews. “He shows up and he competes. When I was [at the NTDP] … Jack Eichel was a ’96 so he was a U-18 and Auston was a U-17, and it was just so well-known that Auston was our best player and Jack was their best player and they were both these generational talents that everyone spoke so highly of and they are. They are. They’re special players.”
Five games in April won’t change that.
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