He was awful in the 2 Boston games and the Columbus game. That was 3 in a row. He may have 11 goals but 5 of them were in the first 3 games. He’s dogging it the majority of the time and can’t be arsed to put in an effort EVERY night.
He talked his BS about needing to be better and then came out the next game, somehow, playing worse.
He’s still very young but it is worrying.
Tiny, little Pettersson took a shot the other day. What did he do? He went and played harder and took a nice run at the guy, clean.
Eichel, McDavid, Laine etc, don’t put up with that bull****. They go harder and make the other team pay on the scoreboard- EVERY NIGHT.
I’m sorry, Matthews doesn’t do that and until he develops a mean streak, it’s going to continue to be frustrating.
It also doesn’t help that the rest of the league knows they can take liberties on this team and nothing will happen. I don’t even care about fighting. Just go out there and play hard. Battle, finish your checks and show like you give a **** for 2 seconds.