Blame the NHL scheduler-makers for putting so many U.S. Olympians in a spot where they had to choose between team and country.
Politics aside, Auston Matthews should probably not have gone to the White House on Tuesday.
Not because it was divisive. But because it was detrimental to his goal of getting the Toronto Maple Leafs into the playoffs.
Matthews, who was criticized for his lack of leadership early on at the Olympics and then praised for it at the end, was the captain of the U.S. team that won gold. And now that his Olympic experience has ended, his job is to show that same leadership with the Leafs.
That not only means being in the lineup when the Leafs play the Tampa Bay Lightning on Wednesday — but also putting himself in a position to succeed. Even if that results in him skipping a late-night party in Miami or a political photo-op in Washington, D.C.
Jake Guentzel, who is on that Lightning team that will play Toronto in Tampa on Wednesday, skipped the festivities and headed back home. And that's a Lightning team that is in first place in the Eastern Conference.
Matthews, who reportedly skipped the U.S. president Donald Trump's State of the Union address at night to re-join his team in Tampa, probably wishes the Leafs were in a similar position as the Lightning or the Pacific Division-leading Vegas Golden Knights, who will be without American gold medallists' Jack Eichel and Noah Hanifin when they play the Los Angeles Kings on Wednesday. Instead, with a 25 games remaining in the regular season, the Leafs are tied with the Senators for 11th place, six points back of the second wild card spot.
At the same time, the NHL should never have put Matthews and so many others in a position where they had to choose between team and country.
The Olympics ended for the U.S. and Canada on Sunday. The NHL resumes on Wednesday. That’s a two-day break for a two-week tournament that was a grind like no other that we've ever seen.
Matthews played in six games in 11 days. Every game was essentially a playoff game. In a winner-goes-on and a loser-goes-home format, most games had the intensity and the stakes of an overtime in Game 7.
That is both physically and emotionally draining.
By the end of it all, Matthews had look of someone who had just winning the Stanley Cup. He was equal parts ecstatic and exhausted. And now, we expect him to jump right back into the lineup for a seven-week sprint to the playoffs?
“I’ll get a better feel when I talk to him here tonight,” Leafs coach Craig Berube told reporters when asked if he thinks his star player will show any fatigue.
What was the NHL scheduler-makers thinking?
I get it, the season is already condensed and crammed. Putting off the re-start of the season any longer would have only made it more condensed. But maybe the NHL could have started the season one week earlier or extended it one week later.
It's one thing to have scheduled the 2016 World Cup of Hockey right before the start of the 2016-17 NHL regular season. But there's a big difference between the start of the season and the end of the season, where the games are tighter and the stakes are higher.
Yes, all games count the same. But at the same time, there's less runway now and less opportunities for error.
In other words, Matthews cannot afford to skip a single shift — much less a single game.
The Leafs don't just need Matthews in the lineup, they need him to be as good — if not better — than the version we saw out of him at the Olympics, where he had seven points in six games. He needs to be Toronto's best offensive player, while also being its best defensive player.
He needs to log big minutes, score big goals and provide big-time leadership. It's a lot to ask. But as the captain, this is what he signed up for.
Having an extra day off surely would have helped in that regard. And unfortunately for Matthews, who is well-deserving of some rest, that day off cannot come on Wednesday against the Lightning.
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