TALENTED ROOKIES
Matthews, Laine lead the way
TORONTO It was way back in April — after his season in Switzerland and before he headed off to Russia to play in the World Hockey Championship — that Auston Matthews enlisted the help of skills coach Darryl Belfry in an attempt to become an even better scorer.
Matthews had already broken the U.S. National Development Team record for points in a season and scored 24 goals in 37 games as a teenager playing in the Swiss league, but he was worried that what worked in junior and in Europe would be of no use against NHLers. So in came Belfry, who also works with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
“I think moving on to the higher levels, it’s all about adapting,” Matthews told Postmedia in May. “Goalies, defencemen, forwards are going to be better at the next level … it’s hard to score goals. That’s something that I worked on with (Belfry) quite a bit, just trying to change the angle and try to get the goalie moving.”
About a year earlier, Patrik Laine did something similar when the Finnish national junior team hired Canadian skills coach Tim Turk to hold a goal-scoring camp. Laine already had a shot that could blow up unopened pop cans, but the 6-foot-4 winger’s upright skating style was tipping off goalies as to when he was releasing the puck. Turk worked on helping Laine shoot in stride.
“Once he got into a stride formation with his lower body and his chest and shoulders pointed forward a bit, it added more power to his already quick release,” said Turk, who has worked with the Montreal Canadiens and Tampa Bay Lightning. “Goalies are so good that players need to be deceptive with their lower body. He started to do that and, well, you know the rest.”
These are just a couple of examples that show why Matthews and Laine are not only neck-andneck for the Calder Trophy, but also are challenging for the Rocket Richard Trophy as the league’s top goal-scorer. Heading into Friday night’s NHL schedule, Matthews and Laine were tied for fourth with 27 goals apiece.
The last time a rookie led the league in goals was in 1992-93, when Teemu Selanne scored 76 times. Since then, the closest any first-year player has come to winning the Rocket Richard Trophy was in 2005-06, when Alex Ovechkin tied for third with 52 goals.
There is an obvious reason why so many rookies struggle to score in their first year in the NHL: the transition is difficult. Players are generally bigger, faster and stronger in the NHL, while the goalies are the best in the world. Even top snipers need time to adapt and figure out how to score.
Pavel Bure had 34 goals as a rookie before exploding for backto-back 60-goal seasons. Steven Stamkos, who had 23 goals as a rookie, needed a year before scoring 50. Crosby didn’t score more than 39 goals until his fifth season. Corey Perry didn’t score more than 32 goals until his sixth season.
That both Matthews and Laine have made scoring look easy is a testament to their goal-scoring talent, but it also speaks volumes about their maturity.
These two are not your average rookies. Both came into the league with their feet soaking wet, having starred for their respective countries at the world championship in May, then having played significant roles at the World Cup of Hockey before the season began. That experience meant there was no initiation when they started their NHL careers.
Still, the ease with which both are scoring is something the league hasn’t witnessed in quite some time. In his NHL debut with the Leafs, Matthews scored four goals. Laine scored a hat trick — his first of three — in just his fourth game with the Jets. Both are on pace for 40 goals — something only Ovechkin has accomplished as a rookie in the last 11 years.
“When I look at what Laine is doing or what Auston Matthews is doing, I look at the body composure, the way they release the puck, and everything relates back to the most important thing for a hockey player, which is confidence,” said skills coach Jari Byrski, who has spent the past 20 years working with Stamkos, Brent Burns, Connor McDavid and many others at his SK8ON hockey school.
“Even a guy like Mitch Marner, you can see that swagger. You need that. You need that cockiness to own that responsibility and be the guy taking those shots.”
Yet to watch Matthews and Laine score is to watch two diametrically different players.
Matthews, who ranks sixth with 196 shots, is a left-handed shot who fires the puck frequently and from nearly everywhere on the ice, whether it’s his forehand or backhand. The right-handed Laine is more selective. He has taken 140 shots, almost all of them on a onetimer as fast as it is accurate.
“I think Laine is more like a pure scorer,” said Finnish-born skills coach Pertti Hasanen, who works with the New Jersey Devils. “The other night when he scored a hat trick against Dallas, the goal he scored off the faceoff was an incredible goal. He stick-battles the guy off first and then it’s bar down. You just don’t see anybody else scoring goals like that. His arm strength and his snap on the puck and the way he shoots it, is incredible.
“It’s timing and rhythm. He doesn’t skate at all. It’s just his arms and his core. You’ve got to flex your stick and then snap your shot off. He has that down to a science.”
With Matthews, it’s less about the shot and more about how he gets into a position to shoot.
“It’s being at the right place at the right time,” Hasanen said. “Matthews plays the game like he knows where to be all the time and he just puts the puck in the net when it’s there. He has a really good shot, too, but it’s not really about the shot. It’s about creating room and knowing where the puck’s going to be. Other people are getting stuck in stick battles, because they don’t know where to stand. He creates space for himself and makes it easier.”
When it comes to their mechanics, Turk said Matthews and Laine are mirror images of one another. They are opposite shots, but both disguise their shooting release like magicians performing sleight of hand. From stickhandling to shooting is a seamless transition. One second, they are carrying the puck up the ice, and before the goalie realizes it, the shot is already on the way to the net.
“It’s almost impossible to shoot in stride, but you can get players to look like they’re shooting in stride,” Turk said.
“It’s about minimizing the pause it takes when they stop their feet from moving to take that shot or do that fake and get the release off and moving their feet again. In the case of Matthews and Laine, that pause is so small, which allows them to be so deceptive.
“Laine and Matthews do it naturally. In my opinion, they’re highly comparable (in) the way they shoot the puck and how deceptive they are in synchronizing their motion. Both of them are highly advanced at using the least space possible when shooting the puck.”
In other words, it’s not surprising they have scored so many goals. And if you think this year has been impressive, just wait until they get even more comfortable.