Matthews has help in debate
Two picks that want to be the best, but one is on his own
EDMONTON— Back when he was the general manager of the Pittsburgh Penguins, Ray Shero kept a notepad, and likely still does. He would write down ideas, conversations, trade concepts. And later he would review the ideas that never left the page and he would think to himself sometimes, “What the heck? That wouldn’t be good.”
And when asked about the responsibility of having young Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin — two generational players, the likes of which you cannot buy — at the start of his tenure in 2006, Shero was honest.
“Yeah, I mean, taking the job, I think that was the pressure, not to screw it up,” Shero told me in 2013. “I’d never been a GM before, I’d been an assistant GM for 14 years at that point in time, I don’t want to f--- it up. We had a couple generational players in here, Crosby going into the second year, Malkin going into his first year . . . You try, knowing that when you try there’s no guarantees of anything.”
The Maple Leafs played the Oilers Thursday night. These teams are linked by their back-to-back No. 1 draft picks and the potential for a rivalry between them, if largely in absentia. Connor McDavid and Auston Matthews played against one another at a world championship, and on the same line in the brief blinding life of Team North America at the World Cup. This was their third meeting in the NHL. They already seem tired of the hoopla that precedes the matchup, but that doesn’t mean the matchup isn’t special.
“If great is really great, all great players do it right all the time,” said Leafs coach Mike Babcock, asked whether he had ever coached a great player who didn’t get up for their true peers. “That’s what they are. They’ve got an elite drive train so they’re dying to play against the best and they want to be in the big moments. That’s what great players are.”
“Whenever you go up against the game’s best, you want to bring your best,” McDavid said. “I mean, you have to when you’re going up against guys like Matthews and Crosby.”
The debate between them isn’t a debate yet. McDavid has a Hart Trophy. Matthews, with a Calder, is a few steps behind.
But Toronto’s 20-year-old has never made much of a secret that he aims to be the best player in the world, which means catching the guy in Edmonton.
“Auston, in that short month that we had him (on Team North America), you could see (ambition) just oozing out of him,” said Oilers coach Todd McLellan, his coach at the World Cup. “He (started as an extra forward, but) wanted to play as one of the top guys . . . Both of them have that spirit. They both want to be the best.”
And for the franchises lucky enough to have them, this raises the stakes, for good and bad. Toronto came in as a team that still hadn’t played its best, but was tracking as a top-10 team in the NHL, with abundant depth and youth. Edmonton came in gasping for air, having lost starting goaltender Cam Talbot for at least two weeks with an upperbody injury, which for a team already at the bottom of the standings might sink their entire season.
And when you have a generational player, that context matters. Leafs management believes having Matthews opens a window of contention that should last a decade and likely more, and nothing that has happened has shaken that idea. It could, but it hasn’t. Having Matthews is an opportunity.
It’s the same for the Oilers and McDavid, but now his team is veering from 103-point playoff team to stink bomb. When you have the greatest player of his generation and the pressure comes to bear, it’s easier for cracks to form — in management, in coaches, everywhere. Once you have a real opportunity, it’s possible to waste it. How many mistakes can you afford? How many have you already made?
“That’s the pressure that goes on the GM,” said TSN’s Craig Button, a former NHL general manager. “That’s one of the things that whenever I’ve been around the top players, it’s not about how good they are. They know they’re good. They want to win. And they want to be on great teams, and they want to perform in the biggest moments.”
“I think that’s the same pressure that (Edmonton GM Peter) Chiarelli feels . . . Whether you say McDavid is a cut above, or two cuts above, he’s just that player who can do anything. Matthews is that top player, but he’s got a little more support around him. But for (Leafs president) Brendan Shanahan and (GM) Lou Lamoriello, they always talk about moving it forward, right? I think they understand that they have a little bit longer runway. I don’t know if the Edmonton Oilers have as long a runway. And when I say that, who knows if they even have a runway?”
Babcock has a line about pressure that he loves: The pressure is the privilege. He says, if you don’t have any pressure, it means you have no chance. If there is going to be a real rivalry between Matthews and McDavid, Matthews will need to grow.
But he already has a better chance to win.