A tour de four debut
Top pick Matthews scores four goals in first NHL game
OTTAWA— In In the hours before Auston Matthews stepped onto the ice for his first regular-season game as a Maple Leaf on Wednesday night, Toronto coach Mike Babcock was asked what he expected from Matthews and the five other rookies in the blue and white lineup.
“Just be good players,” Babcock said. “Take care of the puck. Work real hard. Be good without it. And let your skill come out.”
Be good players? How about be the best player on the ice? Let’s just say it didn’t take long for Matthews to be precisely that in a 5-4 overtime loss at the Canadian Tire Centre.
Result aside, it began as a dream debut. Matthews, a prodigal talent picked No. 1 overall in June’s NHL draft, scored his first three NHL goals on his first three NHL shots, becoming just the fifth player in modern NHL history, and the first Leaf, to score a hat trick in his maiden game. But it didn’t end there. By the evening’s conclusion — heck, before the second period was over — he had potted his fourth goal. And in doing so he’d only authored one of the greatest maiden games in the league’s history.
Nobody else has scored four goals in their inaugural NHL appearance since 1917. Nobody, rookie or not, had scored more goals in an NHL season opener in some 99 years.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Mike Babcock, the Leafs coach.
It was a monster announcement of intent that made even the legendary seem ordinary. Hockey fans with a sense of history know that the great Mario Lemieux famously scored his first NHL goal on the first shot of his first shift. Even if Matthews waited until his third shift to hit the scoresheet, the avalanche of production that followed — performed in this low-scoring era, no less — was incredible to behold. Matthews, who scored 24 goals in 36 games in the Swiss league last season, said it had been “a while” he’d scored four in a game, probably as a pint-sized skater “in mite.”
As Martin St. Louis, the retired NHL all-star, tweeted mid-game: “Feels like I’m watching mite hockey where there’s that one kid who’s just way better than everyone else.”
Never mind the gargantuan numbers — a Leaf hadn’t managed a four-goal regular-season game since Mats Sundin reeled one off 10 years ago — Matthews’ mere presence offered Toronto’s fan base something it hadn’t had in a long time, specifically hope, not to mention concrete evidence that the hope might not be delusional.
In Leafland, where a player hasn’t won a major individual NHL trophy since Doug Gilmour won the Selke in 1993, it counted as a singular arrival, indeed.
“This is not a saviour,” team president Brendan Shanahan said when the Leafs first landed their lottery prize.
Maybe not, especially if newly signed goaltender Frederik Andersen plays like he did in a five-goal performance Babcock deemed “not good enough.” But if Matthews is not a saviour, he is definitely a scorer.
And in a lineup with six rookies, the most for a Leafs season opener since 1981-82, there were plenty more flashes of young brilliance on offer.
Mitch Marner was impressive in his own right, racking up multiple scoring chances — including a firstperiod breakaway — and creating for others with a series of crafty plays. Ditto Matthews’ fellow rookie line-
“A special player . . . that’s the best night I’ve had since I’ve been here by 10 miles.” MIKE BABCOCK ON MATTHEWS’ DEBUT
mates Zach Hyman, who had one assist, and William Nylander, who had two.
“I know Matthews scored all the goals. I thought Marner, in the first half of the game, might have been the best player,” Babcock said. “I thought Nylander was great, thought Hyman was great, thought (Connor) Carrick was great, thought (Nikita) Zaitsev was great. Pretty good night for us. Did we want the other point? Absolutely.”
Yes, the loss: Matthews was critical of his play on Kyle Turris’s overtime winner; the new Leaf figured he was beaten to what turned out to be the game-winning puck.
Still, hiccup aside, it would be putting it mildly to say Matthews separated himself from his peers the rest of the night.
On a first shot destined to be replayed for years, he banged in a net-side puck dug out from behind the net by Hyman. Less than six minutes later he scored his second goal on his second shot in a showcase of sheer superiority.
On the play Matthews stole the puck along the half-boards from a two-time Norris Trophy winner named Erik Karlsson and stormed to the net to beat Craig Anderson with an unassisted snapper.
“Not many guys do that,” said Babcock.
Before the ice was dry after the first-intermission flood, Matthews popped his third marker — this one after he camped out on the Senators doorstep and buried a well-timed pass from Morgan Rielly. Then, after languishing through a scoring slump of 18 minutes and 32 seconds, he scored his fourth goal with three seconds left in the second period, beating Ottawa’s defenceman to the net and potting a pretty pass from Nylander.
It looked so easy, even if history tells us it was anything but.
“A special player. Just for me, from my perspective since I’ve been the Leafs coach, that’s the best night I’ve had since I’ve been here by 10 miles. Not even close. Because now we have an opportunity.”
Matthews, who grew up in Scottsdale, Ariz., and gave up baseball to concentrate on hockey around age 12, said he expected the puck drop would bring “a lot of different emotions,” but that he’d do his best to block them out. Mission, um, accomplished.
On the occasion of an overpowering performance, perhaps understatement was inevitable. Matthews shared his big moment with mother Ema and father Brian, who watched it all from the lower bowl, Ema crying happy tears. The additional family and friends expected to make the trek to Toronto for Saturday’s home opener will wish they’d been here, too.
Said Babcock: “We’re all part of history tonight because we’re here.”