ZSC Lions head coach Marc Crawford was on The Jeff Blair on Sportsnet 590 The Fan show where he gushed about his team’s top line centre, 2016 projected first overall pick Auston Matthews Thursday morning.
Matthews made the unorthodox decision to forgo Canadian junior hockey, and the NCAA in favour of playing in the Swiss National League ahead of his draft year.
The transition has been a smooth one for the young American, and Crawford believes that Matthews deserves the hype.
“I think it really goes with ability and he is a highly, highly talented young man,” said Crawford. “He’s going to be very, very worthy of being a top pick in the NHL draft this upcoming June.”
Crawford scouted Matthews at the 2015 U-18 World Championships last April, held in Switzerland. Matthews led all scorers with 14 points and was named tournament MVP as the U.S. won gold.
Swiss teams get to have only four import players, but according to Crawford “(Matthews) came in and right away he was really good, and I would say after two or three games he’s become one of the premier players in the league.”
Other topics discussed included:
Matthews coming back from his recent back injury
“He played actually three games with the injury. So first of all he shows you his ability to battle through some difficulty, I don’t think many players would have played knowing the injury that he had, and we didn’t realize that it was quite as severe an injury until it showed up in the second MRI that we took of it. So he’s come back and he played really well last night, he scored two outstanding goals.”
The pitch made to recruit him overseas
“We presented like anybody who’s recruiting the reasons why we thought it would be really good for him. He’s playing against older competition, he’s playing against bigger and stronger people which he will be doing, and quite honestly, he would have been doing had he been born two days sooner, he probably would have been playing for the Buffalo Sabres, or for sure the Arizona Coyotes. And so having looked at that we started just making comparisons for him. You can play in an NHL system you can play for a coach who’s coached extensively in the NHL. I think all of those things kind of went into the decision for Auston and his representatives,
On his development so far
“I would say that the biggest thing that’s changed in his game is just awareness of positioning. He’s a very tall kid, and a lot of times he would pick pucks away from players, which means he’d reach around and kind of grab it and as you get higher in level and players protect the puck a little bit more you can’t do that anymore. So I think learning how he has to be positionally, and then put him in a position to use his great stick skill. He’s got a real active stick defensively and offensively he does things at a high speed that I’m amazed by.”
Comparing him to other greats
“I’ve had some really good players at a young age. Whether it was Peter Forsberg, Jamie Benn, the Sedins, Anze Kopitar, this guy has better stick skills, and better puck protection skills than any of those guys had at the same age. He really, really, has a great ability to carry his speed through the neutral zone and he’s difficult to defend against.”
Projecting Matthews in the NHL
“He will translate into a No. 1 centre in the National Hockey League for sure and we’re hoping that he continues to progress, he continues to improve and he continues to help our team. He loves to win, he doesn’t like to lose I can tell you that much, he’s one of those people who has excellence at the forefront of everything that he’s about, and as I said earlier that’s what all NHL clubs are looking for. This is a guy you can certainly build your franchise around.”
On whether Matthews will be allowed to play in the World Juniors
“Absolutely. Part of the whole package was he’s leaving on the 14th of December to head down with Ron Wilson and the U.S. team. They play in Boston for a week and then they go over to Finland and play a couple exhibition games.”
