Matthews fashionably early
Leaf sensation already drawing comparisons to Toews, Kopitar
Brendan Shanahan thinks back to the night something finally went right for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The numbers 5-6-8-13 rolled out of a bingo machine last April, securing the club the first overall pick in the National Hockey League draft, and with it, the right to draft Auston Matthews two months later.
“I felt really that it was something that Maple Leafs fans deserved,” says Shanahan. “There was this mix of happiness and satisfaction that something like that went their way.
“There have been some good things happening to this organization, with Mike Babcock choosing to come here, Lou Lamoriello. We felt good about the young players that had come up at the end of last season before we sent them back to the Marlies for a playoff run. There was a little bit of momentum.
“That (lottery win) was a bit of luck and certainly something Leaf fans were waiting for, and hoping for.”
Matthews, just 19, appears to be exactly the franchise centre the scouts predicted he’d be. He’s not tracking to be there. He is there. And where is he going? The sky may be the limit.
Hockey people tend to temper their enthusiasm when talking about young rookies, not willing to put too much pressure on a kid. Still, names like Sidney Crosby, Jonathan Toews, Anze Kopitar and Stanley — as in Stanley Cup — come up when folks talk about Matthews.
“He’s not the best offensive player I’ve ever seen come in the league in the last 25 years — I think Crosby or Ovechkin, although he’s right there,” says Brian Lawton, a former No. 1 overall pick turned analyst on NHL Network. “He’s not the best defensive player coming in. I think Patrice Bergeron. But when I think of the two? Crosby and Ovechkin had holes defensively. They were not where he’s at. When I add it all up, he’s the most prepared guy.” So where does that take Matthews? “To me that takes him into the Kopitar and Toews category, a guy that as your centrepiece can lead you to multiple Stanley Cups,” says Lawton.
He’ll need help of course. Time will tell if Mitch Marner, William Nylander, Morgan Rielly and Frederik Andersen are to Matthews what Patrick Kane, Marian Hossa and Duncan Keith are to Toews, or what Jeff Carter, Drew Doughty and Jonathan Quick are to Kopitar.
As the Leafs representative for Sunday’s all-star game — he’ll also go head to head with Crosby in Saturday’s skills competition — Matthews has a chance to put himself on a stage with the game’s biggest stars, many of whom he will eclipse if the rest of his career goes like the first half of his rookie season.
Adding to Matthews’ aura — beyond his ability and his place in hockey’s biggest market — is his unique back-story: an American who learned the game in the desert, never having once played on a frozen pond as a youngster.
On top of that, Matthews is humble, and well-spoken. He’s often at the centre of the biggest media scrums in the Leafs’ room — akin only to those given by Crosby and Ovechkin — and will answer questions by looking not just politely at the questioner but taking a few seconds to look at several of the cameras, knowing how important it is how to connect with the eyeballs on the other side.
NBC has changed its programming to carry his games — unheard of for a Canadian team on an American network. Twitter Canada says he is Canada’s most tweeted about hockey player. In short, he can be a crossover athlete, someone the non-hockey fan can identify with.
“He comes from the generation of social media,” says Fernando Pardo, a professor of marketing and branding at Fanshawe College in London, Ont. “He’s communicating very well. He speaks to the non-hockey fan. He’s not a boxscore-type athlete. He’s interested in all types of things.”
Pardo believes Matthews is just the kind of spokesman corporations are looking for: Calm, cool, collected and someone who never puts himself ahead of the team.
“In the world we live in of instant communication, can he show that he is a brand that is calm across the murky waters, when corporations see that he is under so much scrutiny, but he is very calm and can still smile and can talk to hundreds of fans three hours before the game. That’s something they’re going to look for.
“That’s why Michael Jordan was so successful: Win or lose, you could never tell by his post-game interviews. He was still a guy you wanted to hang out with. He’s natural, he’s fair, he acknowledges when others are better than him, and he challenges himself. “Auston has those attributes.” Pardo believes Matthews could command up to $10 million a year in endorsements. So far, his agents, Pat Brisson and Judd Moldaver at CAA, have chosen to go slow with Matthews, though many have come calling. Matthews is aligned with Bauer, but for the most part the strategy is to have him focus on hockey and deal with ancillary stuff later.
Darryl Sittler, Doug Gilmour and Mats Sundin had terrific seasons for the Maple Leafs, but it could be argued you have to go back to the NHL’s first 50 years — if not more — to find a member of the blue and white who could rightfully be considered among the most dominant players in the game. It’s early in Mat- thews’ career, but he’s on his way, his name uttered alongside Connor McDavid as most likely to become the faces of the league when the likes of Crosby and Ovechkin move on.
Shanahan certainly isn’t worried about Matthews’ place in the NHL’s hierarchy, or his brand. He wants his teenage star to continue focusing on being a leader.
“He knows to cement his legacy, it’s all about winning,” says Shanahan. “When I see him working on his faceoffs, working on his defensive game, I see that being contagious among all of our players. That’s the kind of leadership you want.
“It’s one thing for a coach to ask a player to do something,” adds Shanahan. “But when the peer pressure is to do the little things right, it breeds winning. The individual accolades are deserved, and great. But we’re here to build a winning team. If and when that happens, there’ll be enough individual glory to go around as well.”