Spotlight in Canada wouldn’t rattle Matthews: Crawford
Swiss season is over for top prospect, but NHL journey about to begin
Imagine being a star player on a Canadian- based NHL team, whether it be the Canucks, Maple Leafs, Habs, whatever.
As such, imagine the huge backlash from your community when your team is swept in the first round of the playoffs, just two weeks after finishing with the league’s best regular- season record.
There will be nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Not in Canada, a country where hockey is woven right into our national fabric.
Young Auston Matthews didn’t have to deal with that type of pressure when his ZFC Lions were punted out of the Swiss League playoffs in four games by SC Bern, the final blow coming with a 3- 0 loss on Thursday.
Just like that, gone was the momentum of a league- best 31- 12- 7 regular season record, replaced by disappointment and crushed dreams of what might have been. But were flags belonging to the supportive sports fans of Zurich being flown at halfmast? Hardly.
At the same time, as the Swiss hockey chapter of Auston Matthews’ teenage life comes to an end, his NHL journey is on the cusp of beginning, when his name is announced presumably by whatever team wins the draft lottery and picks first on June 24 at the NHL draft at First Niagara Center in Buffalo.
One look at the NHL standings shows that the odds are in favour of a Canadian team holding the No. 1 overall selection, given that all seven representatives from north of the border find themselves among the bottom 10 teams.
Should it play out that way, the question remains: Will Auston Matthews be able to handle the omnipresent spotlight that goes with playing in the fishbowl of a Canadian market?
Keep this in mind: Matthews grew up in laid back Arizona, not in hockey- mad southern Ontario like Connor McDavid did. And while the hype involving his potential role as being “The Next One” continues to balloon in North America, Matthews was shielded from much of it by spending his draft year playing in Europe.
So, will Matthews be able to hack the accompanying limelight that goes with playing in Canada?
No one is in a better position to answer that than Marc Crawford, who coached Matthews this season in Zurich. As a former bench boss of the Vancouver Canucks and a coach in the Maple Leafs farm system, he is an expert at the publicity — both positive and negative — that is plopped on the shoulders of any marquee hockey player in this country, no matter how young he might be.
And, in Crawford’s opinion, Matthews will be able to deal with all of it.
“He’s going to be able to handle it,” Crawford said Friday evening from Switzerland, referring to the hype and hoopla that awaits him if he ends up with a Canadian team.
“Sure, that’s going to be a bit of an adjustment for him. But look at the adjustment he made over here. A different game. A bigger rink. Going from playing against teenage boys to playing against men. That’s a huge difference. I’m not going to try to say he won’t have to make adjustments. But he has so much talent.
“There are going to be growing pains. First off, with the aura of the NHL. Secondly, playing in a man’s world on a smaller ice surface. But he’s so good and he’s so quick.”
Matthews registered just three assists in the series against Bern, but Crawford said those numbers are misleading.
“I think it needs to be pointed out that this was Auston’s very first playoff series,” Crawford said. “He’s played in the U. S. junior program, and I don’t even think in minor hockey he had a playoff series.
“This was a great learning experience for him. We would talk every day about how intense it was. He loved every minute of it. He got better with each game. He was definitely our best player. He had the best chances, he was our most dominant performer, he just ran into a hot goalie he couldn’t figure out.”
From the time Matthews first laced up a pair of blades for Zurich late last summer, Crawford has seen significant changes in his prized pupil, including a physical presence that emerged in the post- season. Perhaps the biggest difference in Matthews has been his morphing from a boy into a man.
“He’s seen a lot of different experiences here,” Crawford said. “Yeah, he’s had a great season but there have been a lot of ups and downs. He made the all- star team and finished second in MVP voting. On the other hand, there was the world junior loss and the disappointment of our playoffs. You learn a lot from adversity.
“The thing is, he’s much more worldly. He hung around with an older crowd like ( former NHLers) Ryan Shannon and Marc- André Bergeron. He was around an older group. When I was 18, I was, well, 18. But Auston comes across as a young adult. A real worldly 23-, 24- year- old, not an 18- year- old.
“There’s still lots more for him to learn. But I know he’ll be a complete player in the NHL. A great player.”
Crawford would know.