MONTREAL — If Auston Matthews needs a hint of what lies ahead, he need only walk down a couple stalls in the Team North America dressing room to find Connor McDavid. Or a few more to find Nathan MacKinnon.
Or he can look across at Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Jack Eichel.
What’s it going to be like being Matthews for the foreseeable future?
“A lot of hype. A lot of expectations A lot of noise. He’s a hot topic,” said MacKinnon, the No. 1 overall pick in 2013. “Going first to Toronto? Yeah, he’s going to be a focal point.”
Making his World Cup of Hockey debut before even playing his first National Hockey League game, Matthews is well aware that being the saviour in a hockey town the likes of Toronto is a life-changer. From this day forward, he won’t be able to go to McDonald’s without packing a Sharpie.
“I’m sure it’s going to change quite a bit,” Matthews said. “But, it’s something I’ve worked towards for my whole life and dreamed of since I was a little kid. You want to have fun with it. Enjoy it as much as you can.
“You’re close to living out your dream.”
For hockey fans, this World Cup provides the chance to grade Matthews against an elite level of competition. But put yourself in his skates.
Whereas McDavid faced Henrik Sedin one game, Erik Karlsson in another, Nicklas Backstrom in another and Victor Hedman in yet another, Matthews will greet all four of them and more at the same time — for the first time — when North America plays Sweden on Sept. 21.
“It’s a little nerve wracking, in a sense that you’ve never played at the NHL level, nevertheless the top of the top,” he said. “For me I just want to learn as much as possible, and just have fun with it. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, this tournament.”
It is absolutely unfair to judge an 18-year-old player when this is his entry point to elite men’s hockey. But this is Canada, and Matthews will be judged.
Books will be penned on Matthews’ rookie season in Toronto, regardless of how many points he accrues, or even if he misses significant time to injury.
McDavid knows, and he must be happy to pass the torch. Shaking his hand for the first time this fall, I saw a more comfortable, talkative and confident McDavid on Monday at the Bell Centre than the kid who faced all those microphones in Edmonton for the first third of the 2015-16 NHL season.
The process matured McDavid in a positive way, as it is likely to do for Matthews.
“It’s going to be busy, it’s going to be hectic, and he’s going to love it,” said McDavid, when asked about what lay ahead for Matthews. “Toronto is going to be a great place for him to play. Part of that is because of the media attention and the fans that they have. Just enjoy it.
“He’ll find a couple of guys that he likes hanging around with. It’s always good to have someone to talk to.”
McDavid moved in with Taylor Hall and Luke Gazdic in Edmonton. That gave him a former No. 1 overall for advice, and a built-in bodyguard when the trio went out on the town.
“Auston will find someone like (Hall). A guy like (Morgan) Rielly is as good a guy as there is,” McDavid suggested. “It feels like it went by so fast. It happens quick. Just enjoy it, that’s what I’d say to him.”
Matthews has already leaned on Eichel and Dylan Larkin, two American players who are familiar to him. “Taking care of your body. Making sure you’re eating the right things is very important in a long season. Those are the key things they tend to focus on when we’re talking,” he said.
After that, the Maple Leafs will have to take care of their future captain.
Team North America head coach Todd McLellan wouldn’t speak for what the Leafs have planned, but he lived this scenario last year in Edmonton, a red-hot hockey town — but still not as red-hot as Toronto.
“We had spent enough time as an organization talking about Connor’s arrival. It began at the draft,” McLellan began. “As an individual, he is very experienced with the media. He carries himself very well, and is wise and mature beyond his years. He handled himself very well.
“But we made sure we had some controls. Because it’s awfully hard for a young player — Connor, Auston, whomever it might be — to say no. And you have to be able to say no at some point. You can’t be everywhere; you can’t do every interview; you can’t be at every charity event. So we tried to take that away from him a little bit and make some of those decisions.”
That’s the off-ice business. On the ice, it’s up to the player to prove to himself that he is as elite at this level as he has been all the way up the ladder.
“I remember Connor’s first two or three games, and he was a good player,” said McLellan, who recalled it took five games for McDavid to arrive. “But there was a game where I felt he gave himself permission. He was less respectful to his team and the league — in a good way — and he played. He just went and played. From then on he just realized that he could do it, and be himself.
“Young players need to give themselves permission, at some point, to excel.”
