Can Matthews-Laine be next great rivalry?
Rookies off to strong starts, but geography may limit competition between them
After an explosive opening week to their rookie seasons, Auston Matthews and Patrik Laine have done nothing to douse talk of a heated rivalry as their careers progress.
Some hockey experts feel the first Matthews-Laine meeting — Wednesday night when the Maple Leafs visited Winnipeg — might have been the start of a rivalry that could be the heir apparent to Sidney Crosby vs. Alex Ovechkin.
Laine had a hat trick against the Leafs, including the game-winner in overtime seconds after Matthews was stopped at the other end on a breakaway.
Laine made no secret before the draft that he thought he could be the No. 1 pick, which ended up being Matthews. The Leafs rookie made a big splash when he scored a record four goals in his NHL debut against Ottawa.
“There’s two great offensive talents there and when you have that, it can be mano a mano, and people will always have a measuring stick between the two of them, they’ll keep tabs, and it will be exciting,” said Pierre McGuire, the former TSN hockey analyst who works on NBC’s hockey broadcasts.
The standard continues to be Crosby-Ovechkin, who have been constantly compared and measured through 11 seasons.
Drafted first overall in back-to-back years, they joined the NHL together after the 2004-05 lockout. Their rivalry was helped by geography —it’s less than a five-hour drive between Pittsburgh and Washington — and by the frequency with which they faced each other — in the regular season, and twice in the playoffs. Internationally, the classic Canada-Russia showdown theme added more spice.
There has been the promise of other rivalries that haven’t panned out. Taylor Hall and Tyler Seguin, drafted No. 1 and No. 2 in the 2010 draft, had fans arguing over which one should have been selected first overall. But the lack of games against each other left the potential for a rivalry stalled from the start.
The hype around the top two picks last year — Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel —— holds all the promise of a great, one-on-one rivalry. But tough injury luck has left any potential for a rivalry still in the starting gates. McDavid missed half of his rookie season, and Eichel missed the first meeting between the two this season after getting hurt in practice.
TSN analyst Craig Button sees Matthews-Laine being limited by NHL scheduling, which pits the Leafs against the Jets just twice this season (the next coming Feb. 21 at the Air Canada Centre).
“Yes, as individuals, they are such outstanding talents,” Button said of Matthews and Laine. “But I feel, with Gretzky-Lemieux, we got cheated, they didn’t play against one another often, not in the regular season or in the playoffs. They played together internationally, but the head-tohead battles, that’s where the rival- ries are born.”
Button and McGuire, though, noted that the local fans in Winnipeg embraced the rivalry act. When Laine notched his hat trick against Toronto, Jets fans chanted, “Laine is better, Laine is better.”
Despite being rookies, their hot starts have vaulted the two players into the NHL scoring leaders.
“You have these talents in a scoring race this early, and they play in two Canadian markets that are very different from each other,” Button said.
“In Winnipeg, it’s ‘Don’t take us lightly, we can play with the big boys,’ and in Toronto, it’s the biggest hockey market in the world. So from those perspectives, you could have two fan bases anxious to show they have the better player.
“I don’t think the players will disappoint, and I don’t think their fan bases will disappoint. When the Winnipeg fans shouted ‘Laine is better, Laine is better,’ it was like, ‘Hey, match that.’ These two kids are outstanding talents, so there’s always going to be that 1-2 in the draft and the measuring stick that goes with it.”
Peter Widdis, a professor at George Brown College’s School of Marketing, feels Matthews-Laine already has a built-in marketing potential — personal success.
NBC altered its hockey broadcast schedule to accommodate Matthews’ home debut in Toronto, which followed his historic four-goal game. And the two players were hot topics at the recent World Cup of Hockey.
“It’s not the same as Canada-Russia, Crosby-Ovechkin, but if I’m the NHL, I’m excited because these two athletes already have a global appeal, with the World Cup of Hockey and the draft,” Widdis said.
“There’s so much more of a marketing machine around the NHL draft now than there was10 years ago when Crosby and Ovechkin were drafted. The two players are not from traditional NHL markets (Arizona and Finland), but . . . now (Matthews is) pulling on a Leafs jersey, and it’s got the potential for everyone to see a superstar being born out of the Toronto market, for the first time in a long time. And that’s the building of a brand wagon, especially with the start both players have had.”