Passing of torch
One top Leafs pick breaks the scoring mark of another
Wendel Clark accepted another expression of condolences with a broad smile and a good-humoured quip: “Well, it was a good run, eh?”
Yep, some 31 years as the holder of the Maple Leafs rookie goal-scoring record was more than long enough. So the sight of 19-year-old Auston Matthews potting his 35th goal of his remarkable first NHL season on Tuesday night, even if it surpassed Clark’s record of 34 goals set back in 1986, didn’t appear to plunge Clark into a period of intense mourning. Certainly Clark had a decent amount of notice this day was coming.
“Second period of the first game,” Clark said, identifying Matthews’ history-making four-goal debut as the moment he knew his mark was in jeopardy.
As the 50-year-old Clark pointed out to a crowd of reporters who gathered to hear his thoughts during the first intermission of Toronto’s important 3-2 win over the Florida Panthers, such torch passings ought to be the natural order of things for a franchise with aspirations of glory.
“It’s great,” Clark said. “If we’re going to be any good we need these young guys breaking all this stuff.”
As with most of Matthews’ memorable outbursts this season, from those opening-night fireworks to his outdoor-game winner, Tuesday’s was timely. On a night when the Leafs were looking to bounce back from a lifeless 5-2 loss in Buffalo on Saturday — and with backup goaltender Curtis McElhinney getting a start with No. 1 Frederik Andersen still recovering from an injury — the tone-setting first goal was vital.
And Matthews potted it for the leagueleading 14th time on a feed from Zach Hyman. If it was a big deal for Hyman — who’d managed just one assist and zero goals in his previous 10 games playing alongside Matthews, and who later scored a goal that turned out to be the winner — it was exactly what most observers have come to expect from Matthews, who has found a way to produce no matter the opponent or the linemate.
“Just to be in the same sentence with a guy like Wendel Clark is a great honour,” Matthews said after it was over. “A lot of credit to my linemates.”
On Tuesday Clark compared Matthews to Hall of Fame Leafs centreman Mats Sundin for his duel-threat ability to create for himself or for teammates. And since goal scoring was the topic of the moment, Clark lauded Matthews for his “nose” for the net, for his “scorer’s touch,” for possessing “hands of a little guy.”
‘He really thinks the game, more about how to get the goal than to be the pretty goal.” WENDEL CLARK ON AUSTON MATTHEWS
“Goal scorers score from anywhere on anything . . . The pretend goal scorers are going high top glove all the time,” Clark said. “Where, when you watch Auston shoot, he’s (going) low, between the legs, blocker side — like, he’s (playing) percentages of what’s going to happen. If there’s no goal on the shot there’s going to be something on the rebound or maybe another shot, or a teammate’s got it. He really thinks the game, more about how to get the goal than to be the pretty goal.”
This is the way it should be in the history of a storied franchise — a beloved older generation’s greats nodding their approval at the new generation’s exploits. When Clark was ripping through the league in his first year, he was bestowed with the quiet nod of approval from respected Leafs and ex-Leafs.
“For a rookie — I’ve never seen a better one,” said Borje Salming that year, whose No. 21 now hangs with Clark’s No. 17 in the ACC rafters.
There are parallels with Matthews and Clark, of course. Both were drafted first overall by the last-place Maple Leafs. Both were central to a reinvigoration of the franchise. But there are differences, too.
“He had more games than I had to get it,” Clark pointed out. And indeed, when Clark reeled of his his 34 goals, he did it in 66 games, this after missing more than a month with a broken foot. (Tuesday was Matthews’s 75th game).
Clark finished tied for 37th in NHL goal scoring in his rookie season; that year the league leader, Jari Kurri, potted 68 goals. Matthews began Tuesday tied for fifth on the league’s goal chart, only eight behind leader Sidney Crosby. And such was the humility of Clark’s era, and of Clark, that after he led the Leafs to their first playoff-series win in seven years and the Leafs were eliminated in the second round, he returned to the family farm in Kelvington, Sask., where he helped his father with the spring seeding.
“We planted some flax, rape seed and wheat, but it’s all done now,” Clark told a reporter at the NHL awards banquet, where it was revealed he had finished second in Calder Trophy voting to Calgary defenceman Gary Suter.
Clark said he’s been impressed by the seeds being planted by Toronto’s management and coaching staff that promise bigger bounties to come. He said he admires Matthews most for the way he’s embraced his defensive responsibilities “with a grin on his face.”
Said Leafs coach Mike Babcock after the game: “(Matthews) wants to be the best player in the world . . . Tonight he lost a faceoff there and his guy ended up scoring . . . The more mistakes you make, the more you learn.”
Said Matthews, speaking of his defensive game: “There’s still room for improvement.”