Ice Cold Takes: Is Auston Matthews ever going to be as good as Leon Draisaitl?

Ice Cold Takes is a weekly NHL humor column. The Maserati of hockey columns that consistently performs like a Volkswagen (More on this later).

Edmonton. Colorado. Washington and Buffalo. The four teams everyone guessed would be at the top of the league early in this NHL season. Washington isn’t much of a surprise, but it’s nice to see the other three doing this well, this early. The Avalanche have a ton of talent, the Sabres built a strong team through drafts and acquisitions and the Oilers were due for a season in which they didn’t waste Connor McDavid.

The Washington Capitals not only lead the league in points, they also have the league’s leading point getter, John Carlson. Yes, defenseman John Carlson, or as Alex Ovechkin is calling him, John Norris. Carlson has five goals and 16 assists through 12 games.

One d-man who hasn’t tallied up 21 points is the ENTIRE OTTAWA SENATORS DEFENSE (who have only 12 points). That’s a useless stat, but it’s been a while since we’ve talked about Ottawa. Take that, you unfortunate, long-suffering fan base, with your poorly-managed team and maniacal, villainous owner.

Pasta for breakfast, lunch and dinner

David Pastrnak is incredible. This is the earliest I’ve performed my annual David Pastrnak age check because there’s no way this guy is still only 23 years old. It feels as though he’s been dominating highlight reels for ten years. The Bruins top line of Pasta, Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand improving their case for being the top line in hockey once again this season. This pass from Pastrnak to Marchand adds to that discussion, if you can even call it a discussion at this point.

Don’t mind Jack Edwards’ commentary. Matthews wasn’t “embarrassed” on the play. If anything, he, like the rest of us, was bamboozled by how the play was even made. The Bruins top line is like the planet Earth, heating up at such a fast pace that it’s literally melting all the ice (climate change is not a joke). The B’s are turning the tables and it’s now opposing goaltenders that are dying at an alarming rate (doubling down).

The best part about this highlight is that it was Pasta’s second best play on Tuesday night against the Toronto Maple Leafs. He also got a little fancy with a between-the-legs goal, while skating backwards.

Leading the league in goals. Second in points. Just arriving at the doorstep of the prime years of his career. Ridiculous.

Ovechkin’s goal scoring

Speaking of ridiculous goal scorers, Alex Ovechkin is going to catch Wayne Gretzky‘s goal record before his career is over. This statement would be absolutely bonkers if it was written five or six years ago, but here we are, sitting at 667 with no sign of slowing down.

He’ll most certainly pass Lemieux this season. Ovi has nine goals through 12 games, which is insane. His salt and pepper grey hair makes him look so much older than 34 so it’s easy to forget that this is a guy who has four or five years of high-end hockey left in him. Everyone waiting for the drop off in 50-goal seasons is going to have to wait a little longer.

Wayne Gretzky has the record with 894 goals. Let’s assume Ovi slows down from his current pace and only scores 50 this season. That puts him at 708 goals, tied with another Capitals legend, Mike Gartner, at 7th overall. If he has a couple more 40+ goal seasons in him before he “drops off”, he’ll be around 800 before he turns 38. If you don’t think he’s sticking around to crack 894 at that point, you’re crazy.  Ovi is breaking Wayne’s record because he is the greatest goal-scorer who has ever lived (Sorry mom).

What did he say!?

Sticking with Capitals news, this guy at the Capitals vs. Chicago Blackhawks game on Monday dropped a bombshell on his family right before the cameras caught him on television. Check it out:

The reactions here tell a story. The problem is, we have absolutely no idea what kind of story it is. Time to throw on our investigative hats and break this clip down piece by piece.

Dad: Obviously the source of the incredible/awful/surprising/insane news. He immediately turns from consoling his daughter to throwing his arms up like a drunk college kid in the club hearing the “everybody’s hands go up!” part of “All I Do is Win.”

Third person: The person on the end wearing 74 (either Mom, brother or sister – can’t tell from the video) stays shocked. Regardless of who this is in the family, it’s a mom-like reaction. This is how any mom would react to anything ranging from “The rest of our family just died in a horrific plane crash” to “I forgot to take the chicken out of the freezer.” No help here.

Daughter: Here’s where we begin to crack the case. The middle daughter goes from shockingly looking at her dad to turning and saying “I’m so sorry” to someone in front of them. Pair this with the reaction of the man sitting directly in from of them and I think we can narrow this down to one of two options:

Either dad shouted something really stupid that he shouldn’t have said outside of the comfort of his basement La-Z-Boy  or he spilled his beer all over the three rows ahead of him. Given that the Caps had just scored, let’s go with the latter. Mystery solved.

Auston “Maserati” Matthews

Or Mitchell “Maserati” Marner. As TSN hockey analyst Craig Button points out, these two stars aren’t shining as bright as they should be early in the season. This, folks, is hockey media in Toronto:

I respectfully agree, Craig. Mitchell Marner has three goals and nine assists through 11 games. Auston Matthews has eight goals and three assists. The Leafs’ top two players are both currently in the NHL’s top 20 for points, but all of that aside, when it matters, these two fade into the background.

Button is referring to the performance of these two during the Leafs vs. Bruins game on Tuesday night. Disregard the fact that they played against one of the top back-checking teams in the NHL, or that Tuukka Rask is having the best start to a season of his career, or that they were in Boston, coming off of an overtime game the night before (in which they both had points). None of that matters. Marner and Matthews need to do more.

Button also took some heat recently for saying that Leon Draisaitl is better than Auston Matthews. Once again, he and I are on the same page. Here is the exact quote from Button:

“I think the talk about Auston Matthews as being one of the best players in the league needs to stop. Because he’s not as good as Draisaitl.”

Where is the line being drawn for “best players,” I wonder? Leon Draisaitl is one of the best players in the league. Is Button talking top five? Because the only people saying Matthews was in that tier to begin with were Button and his Toronto media buddies.

In Toronto, you’re the greatest player on Earth until you get paid. Then you become a massive disappointment. For non-Leafs fans, this is one of the best parts of every hockey season. Forget about the four Western Canadian teams, with their league leading performances, highlight reel hat-tricks and upcoming Heritage Classic game, let’s trash the two best players in Toronto instead.

We’re on pace for another Bruins vs. Leafs round one NHL playoff match up and given Tuesday’s performance, we can expect to see another round of Matthews and Marner performing like trashy junkyard Volkswagens.

Keep your head up.