C Auston Matthews - ZSC Lions, NLA (2016 Draft) V

[WTFMAN99]

You wear it to the arena and give evil eye on everyone and everything if that should happen, as small man's silent protest at the system that is rotten.

LOL most definitely. It's going to be one of those relics like those Gretzky and Lindros jerseys (prior to him arriving) floating around the city if he doesn't get drafted by us.

 

[93LEAFS]

All of that does sound sensible, and prestige-wise it obviously would be a step down for an established NHLer, especially if and as NHL teams see it foremostly a prospect development forum.

But am I still correct in assuming that the U20 eligible rookies making a genuine impact in NHL level is a relatively new thing, especially on this width that several nations have them simultaneously? I'm under understanding that as a rule they also have not hithertoforth represented their country in WHC on their draft year either.

U-20's NHLers have been missing the tourny forever, from Joe Thornton to Crosby to Stamkos etc, even if they aren't making a massive impact there is no reason to send them down. If you are trying to get the Jr mistakes out of a player, why would you send him back to Jr for two weeks then bring him back up, it makes little sense development wise unless the guy is getting no ice-time (see Virtanen and Lazar). Here's a list of the guys who missed for Canada and the USA last year. For Canada it was McDavid, Ekblad, Fabbri, McCann, and Sam Bennett, for the USA it was Eichel, Hanifin and Dylan Larkin.

In Matthews case, he's excelled already in a men's league, he isn't going to develop more playing against kids his age and younger, its better to be giving him 12-14 minutes a game at the NHL level then sending him to play 20 a game vs his peers. I'm sure the same logic applies to Laine, and likely NHLers from last draft (Marner, Strome, Provorov and Werenski).

 

[Lempo]

Okay, I think you finally got me sold on it. Thank you for your patience, 93LEAFS.

(I'm afraid this was only the first mild taste of the annoyance that will be released if it should happen that Puljujärvi and Aho indeed will go to the WJC and it gets out that they'll be doing it without the other winger, despite him being eligible and defending champion and all that. It may not be bad idea to bookmark the patent answer for future use. )

 

[djdev]

Okay, I think you finally got me sold on it. Thank you for your patience, 93LEAFS.

(I'm afraid this was only the first mild taste of the annoyance that will be released if it should happen that Puljujärvi and Aho indeed will go to the WJC and it gets out that they'll be doing it without the other winger, despite him being eligible and defending champion and all that. It may not be bad idea to bookmark the patent answer for future use. )

you dont want the jersey with the new logo??? he might be the 1st player to put it on!
haha i guess the "i got it 1st" factor means something though

 

[Divine]

Matthews seems to be lost in Laine's shadow among these boards for some reason. Everyone talks about how Liiga > NLA. What they refuse to talk about is how Matthews went over to NLA, and in his first season was the best player on the best team in the league, and scored the most goals and had the best PPG on his team by far. He then went into the playoffs with the best team in the league, and once again had the most points before his team was eliminated. As a first year player, playing a different country on a different size ice surface, he finished 2nd in MVP voting after 32 year old, former 8th overall NHL player Pierre-Marc Bouchard. He was also the best player on his team at the WJC, Swiss Cup (tied for most points in the tournament), and WC. No matter where Matthews went, he was always the best on his team, Laine didn't have those same responsibilities and more often than not, he wasn't the best player on his team.

IMO, Matthews is a tier above Laine.

 

[Jimmy Firecracker]

Matthews seems to be lost in Laine's shadow among these boards for some reason. Everyone talks about how Liiga > NLA. What they refuse to talk about is how Matthews went over to NLA, and in his first season was the best player on the best team in the league, and scored the most goals and had the best PPG on his team by far. He then went into the playoffs with the best team in the league, and once again had the most points before his team was eliminated. As a first year player, playing a different country on a different size ice surface, he finished 2nd in MVP voting after 32 year old, former 8th overall NHL player Pierre-Marc Bouchard. He was also the best player on his team at the WJC, Swiss Cup (tied for most points in the tournament), and WC. No matter where Matthews went, he was always the best on his team, Laine didn't have those same responsibilities and more often than not, he wasn't the best player on his team.

IMO, Matthews is a tier above Laine.

The reason being heaven forbid the Leafs have nice things. Meh. Let him be underrated.

 

[TheDoldrums]

Matthews seems to be lost in Laine's shadow among these boards for some reason. Everyone talks about how Liiga > NLA. What they refuse to talk about is how Matthews went over to NLA, and in his first season was the best player on the best team in the league, and scored the most goals and had the best PPG on his team by far. He then went into the playoffs with the best team in the league, and once again had the most points before his team was eliminated. As a first year player, playing a different country on a different size ice surface, he finished 2nd in MVP voting after 32 year old, former 8th overall NHL player Pierre-Marc Bouchard. He was also the best player on his team at the WJC, Swiss Cup (tied for most points in the tournament), and WC. No matter where Matthews went, he was always the best on his team, Laine didn't have those same responsibilities and more often than not, he wasn't the best player on his team.

IMO, Matthews is a tier above Laine.

Indeed. That has always been the case whether it was the USNDTP, the Zurich Lions, the World Juniors or the World Championships. It will be true next year in Toronto as well.

 

[MMC]

I feel like he will be absolutely eaten alive by these boards if anything goes even close to slightly wrong in his first season

 

[Future]

Matthews seems to be lost in Laine's shadow among these boards for some reason. Everyone talks about how Liiga > NLA. What they refuse to talk about is how Matthews went over to NLA, and in his first season was the best player on the best team in the league, and scored the most goals and had the best PPG on his team by far. He then went into the playoffs with the best team in the league, and once again had the most points before his team was eliminated. As a first year player, playing a different country on a different size ice surface, he finished 2nd in MVP voting after 32 year old, former 8th overall NHL player Pierre-Marc Bouchard. He was also the best player on his team at the WJC, Swiss Cup (tied for most points in the tournament), and WC. No matter where Matthews went, he was always the best on his team, Laine didn't have those same responsibilities and more often than not, he wasn't the best player on his team.

IMO, Matthews is a tier above Laine.

No one is coming in here to praise the future face of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

 

[Kelly]

I feel like he will be absolutely eaten alive by these boards if anything goes even close to slightly wrong in his first season

I feel like he will be eaten alive by these boards regardless of how he does next year.

 

[GretzkytoLemieux]

Matthews seems to be lost in Laine's shadow among these boards for some reason. Everyone talks about how Liiga > NLA. What they refuse to talk about is how Matthews went over to NLA, and in his first season was the best player on the best team in the league, and scored the most goals and had the best PPG on his team by far. He then went into the playoffs with the best team in the league, and once again had the most points before his team was eliminated. As a first year player, playing a different country on a different size ice surface, he finished 2nd in MVP voting after 32 year old, former 8th overall NHL player Pierre-Marc Bouchard. He was also the best player on his team at the WJC, Swiss Cup (tied for most points in the tournament), and WC. No matter where Matthews went, he was always the best on his team, Laine didn't have those same responsibilities and more often than not, he wasn't the best player on his team.

IMO, Matthews is a tier above Laine.

And here we go again

 

[Stephen]

Yeah it's too bad for the Sabresn that their blatant tanking didn't pay off, whereas the Leafs blatant tanking did pay off because they won the lottery.

Yeah exactly.

 

[Liminality]

I feel like he will be absolutely eaten alive by these boards if anything goes even close to slightly wrong in his first season

I'm not entirely sure. I think he will be scrutinized too much like a lot of top young prospects but Toronto this year gave a ton of leeway to almost all the young players knowing it was a transition year. You would hear about the complaints about the "vets" but as soon as the younger players came people were actually really excited and hungry to watch these guys develop.

Media as always will be a different beast than the fans.

 

[BananaSquad]

Matthews is clearly the best player in this draft and will be a Leaf. This Laine hype is a bit crazy but Toronto will make the right choice and take the best player.

 

[Stephen]

I feel like he will be absolutely eaten alive by these boards if anything goes even close to slightly wrong in his first season

I think the boards will be looking to eat him alive in general, but he's a special kid and will do Toronto proud and prove the naysayers wrong.

 

[GretzkytoLemieux]

No one is coming in here to praise the future face of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

What a ridiculous attitude. This persecution fantasy is ridiculous. It's a complex with some of you.

 

[NarcoPolo]

And here we go again

Same old song and dance for the guy with 30 posts?..

 

[GretzkytoLemieux]

:

Same old song and dance for the guy with 30 posts?..

hehe these 30 posts have aged me

 

[Captain Timo]

Well, as a Sharks/Leafs fan, heartbreak has set upon after tonights loss. Oh well. Excited for June 24th and getting the chance to watch Matthews thrown on the blue and white.

 

[FlareKnight]

Well, as a Sharks/Leafs fan, heartbreak has set upon after tonights loss. Oh well. Excited for June 24th and getting the chance to watch Matthews thrown on the blue and white.

Tough position there.

But yeah....at least can be excited about seeing that. See Matthews put on that Leafs jersey and get the draft underway. At least the discussion can somewhat switch to just talking about the player....hopefully.

 

[teravaineSAROS]

The reason being heaven forbid the Leafs have nice things. Meh. Let him be underrated.

lmfao.. like how Nylander was hyped up as a top 5 prospect before Toronto won the lottery?

A big reason to the amount of Laine hype is how well he's performed for half a year now (WJC, Liiga playoffs and WHC).

these things go in waves, Matthews will get a lot hype again soon enough.

 

[ijuka]

Regardless of "that other guy", why is this thread so dead? Does no one just feel like looking up examples of Matthews's plays and analyse his play style / compile shift by shifts and look at what sorts of things he does in the way I like to do with "the other guy" or is it that Matthews is already a pretty well known and established asset so there's not many surprises left and not that much to discuss anymore?

I've been pretty disappointed with this thread.


I guess I'll go do some puck reliability stats for him in a random game to kill some time, say the USA vs Czechia match. Even though this is something the Americans or the Leafs fans are supposed to be doing...

 

[Itkonen]

Don't mix the amount of hfboards posts with hype. The reason why the Laine thread has so much more posts is because he's a much more controversial player. Matthews is a good ol' familiar American kid with a well-rounded game with no weaknesses and behaves well. He's been known to be the top of his draft class for a long time now. By now he just robotically executes the game with great efficiency and no one is surprised. The conversation goes pretty much "This kid is good" "Yeah we know" and that's that.

Laine on the other hand is a shiny new toy with a flashy skill set and a rock star's personality. Pretty much anything anyone says strikes up a heated debate. The Laine thread in a nutshell: "He will be better than Ovechkin!" "No he won't he's too slow, he's as bust as a bust can get." "But his shot is a threat to humanity." "Don't be silly now, he won't even get to the NHL because he's an obnoxious locker room cancer who I hear threatens to kill coaches several times a day." "No, he is just confident and I view his bloodlust as a good thing." "But you can clearly see from his hair that he will soon go bald so he's not a real man." "No he has a beautiful flow and will bring lots of beautiful little Laines in this world as he truly is the stallion who mounts the world."

 

[Woll Smoth]

Regardless of "that other guy", why is this thread so dead? Does no one just feel like looking up examples of Matthews's plays and analyse his play style / compile shift by shifts and look at what sorts of things he does in the way I like to do with "the other guy" or is it that Matthews is already a pretty well known and established asset so there's not many surprises left and not that much to discuss anymore?

I've been pretty disappointed with this thread.


I guess I'll go do some puck reliability stats for him in a random game to kill some time, say the USA vs Czechia match. Even though this is something the Americans or the Leafs fans are supposed to be doing...

The last post in the Laine thread doesn't belong to you. So you might wanna hurry up and post there again. And sorry that we're not all sitting here talking about how Matthews will score 50, grow another 1-2 inches before the draft and break down his skating into 0.1 second segments to talk about how elite his skating is.

 

[a mangy Meowth]

As a part of the HFBoards hivemind, I definitely plan on consuming Matthews next season regardless of stats. He's doomed.