Teen Matthews starts out hot in Swiss league
18-year-old has five points in four games
You just can’t get a good burrito in Switzerland. A pita stuffed with chicken and french fries and slathered in mayonnaise — you can find no problem. But that’s not exactly a burrito. Certainly it’s not the kind that Auston Matthews was used to eating before games and on off-days when he was playing hockey in the United States.
“The only thing I really miss is my Chipotle,” he said of the popular restaurant chain. “And In-N-Out Burger maybe. But it’s probably a good thing that those things aren’t here.”
Burgers and burritos are just some of the sacrifices that Matthews made when the 18-year-old decided to leave his home in Scottsdale, Ariz., and play professional hockey in Switzerland.
It was a trail-blazing move for the top prospect, who also left behind his father and younger sister — his mother and older sister are living in Zurich with him — to play his draft year in a league where the ice surface is bigger and where many players are former NHLers.
The most common route to the NHL includes playing hockey against peers in either the Canadian Hockey League or NCAA, where more eyeballs are watching. Even top Swiss players like Nino Niederreiter and Sven Baertschi came to North America before their draft years.
And here is Matthews going the other way.
“I don’t think I made the decision to be a trailblazer or anything like that,” Matthews, who missed being eligible for the 2015 draft by two days, said in a phone interview from Zurich.
“I just saw it as a pretty good opportunity for myself to play against men in a pro league. Like I said, it’s a skilled league and it’s fast and I really wanted to challenge myself.”
The Swiss league includes former NHLers Cory Conacher and Pierre-Marc Bouchard, but the 6-foot-2 Matthews is making it look easy so far. He has three goals and five points in four games and is the No. 1 centre for ZSC Lions, a Marc Crawford-coached team that won the championship in 2014 and reached the final last season.
While the Swiss league is not considered to be as talented as the KHL in Russia or the Swedish elite league, what Matthews has been able to accomplish, according to Crawford, is “just phenomenal.”
“It’s a better league than the AHL,” said Crawford, who is coaching in his fourth season. “The Rochester Americans were in the Spengler Cup last year and they just couldn’t compete against the Swiss teams.
“They didn’t have enough skill.
“First of all, his size is a benefit. He’s a big, strong, great-skating, great puckhandling No. 1 centre. Most of the other No. 1 centres can’t match his size and don’t carry their speed like he does. You would be hard-pressed to come to our game and not notice him.”
Indeed, scouts have already taken notice. Matthews has already been universally declared the No. 1 prospect heading into the 2016 draft.
A physically dominating six-foot-two centre, Matthews broke Patrick Kane’s scoring record at the U.S. National Team Development Program with 116 points last season. He even scored a goal for the U.S. during an exhibition game before the world championship against NHLers.
Had he been born 48 hours earlier, most scouts believe he would have joined Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel in the top three in 2015. Some say he might have been selected ahead of Eichel at No. 2.
“This isn’t a walk in the park,” said Craig Button, TSN’s director of scouting. “The Swiss league is a very demanding league. But he’s so good that he makes it easy.”
In the process, Matthews could be making future prospects rethink their path to the NHL. Matthews was always going to be an interesting case study, since he grew up playing hockey in a nontraditional market. But now that he is playing pro hockey — players can earn upward of US$500,000 — in his draft year, why wouldn’t another prospect consider this route?
“Anybody who’s been watching the U.S. amateur program for the last two years is very familiar with Auston. He’s a big name and a well-known commodity in Arizona,” Coyotes general manager Don Maloney said.
“He was actually at our development camp in July. I told him I had a contract in my office. Let’s get this over with.”
For now, Matthews is trying not to think about the draft or whether he is a trailblazer. But did say he is trying to keep tabs on the NHL, but the time difference makes watching games live difficult. “Staying up until three in the morning is not something I really want to do,” he said.
Count it as yet another sacrifice he hopes will be worth it in the long run.
Strong, great-skating, great puck-handling No. 1 centre