Matthews reveals a list of players he grew up trying to emulate; he's done a good job of it too
Auston Matthews is a player who, no doubt, is influencing the next generation of young hockey players with his incredible shot and his ever improving two-way game. As one of the brightest young stars in the game, it's only a matter of time before we see some of the upcoming draftees talking about growing up idolizing Matthews. Hell, even some of his peers probably idolize him now.
On Thursday, ahead of the Leafs' road matchup against the Dallas Stars, Matthews met with the media to answer some questions. One of these questions was about who influenced him growing up. While we already know that Matthews was a huge Patrick Kane fan, the 24-year-old gave a pretty in-depth answer to the question, admitting that he had several phases that he went through where he adopted traits from different players.
Matthews lists the obvious ones like Ovechkin, Malkin, Crosby and the aforementioned Kane, but he also tossed out the name Pavel Datsyuk as well, which I found interesting - especially with the growth of his defensive game over the last two seasons and his ability to strip pucks like the Red Wings legend.
It's no surprise that Matthews had a variety of guys that he pinpointed as some of his favourites to watch. The players he listed are obviously all elite, but all very different players. Through trying to emulating parts of their games, Matthews has somehow managed to play with the scoring prowess of Ovechkin, the stickhandling of Kane, the two-way efficiency of Crosby, the defensive acumen of Datsyuk and the puck protection skills of Malkin. It's actually really impressive when you stop to think about it.
| POLL | ||
AVRIL 7 | 299 ANSWERS Matthews reveals a list of players he grew up trying to emulate; he's done a good job of it too Which player that Matthews tries to emulate do you see the most of in his game? | ||
| Datsyuk | 63 | 21.1 % |
| Malkin | 76 | 25.4 % |
| Crosby | 92 | 30.8 % |
| Kane | 68 | 22.7 % |
| List of polls | ||
