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Auston Matthews is from Arizona........

October 13, 2016, 11:47 AM ET [127 Comments]
James Tanner
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Last night was something far beyond the best case scenario for the NHL to start their new season. The League, the Fans, Toronto......hell, somehow even Ottawa were all winners last night.

It was an incredible night from each of the league's two best young stars. Connor McDavid, of course already is one of, if not the very best player in the NHL, but Auston Matthews ( perhaps the first time in the post expansion era where (potentially) the NHL would have one of its biggest stars in its biggest market ) was a revelation.

For fans of hockey in the South, it was almost as big a night as it was for Leafs fans. Never before has a player born in a hot-weather city made a significant impact in the league. Funny how the first one to do so made such an impression in his first game that now anything less than a hall of fame career will be a disappointment.



Sure, he isn't likely to ever score four goals again this year, but just the fact that he's capable of making the plays he made all but ensures he will live up to the hype. On his second goal, if you digitally put a Penguins jersey on him and watched it in standard-definition, you wouldn't doubt for a second it was Mario Lemieux making that play.

I don't think I'm overselling this, and, who knows, maybe later I'll regret being so brash, but I think that was the best sporting event I've ever watched. It was one of those times where you're watching history being made and it was surreal.

As a Leafs fan, that probably isn't saying much, I'll admit, but Jeez.......

As far as scoring 4 goals in a game.........I didn't have much luck finding out how rare it is but I'm guessing it probably happens less often than a no-hitter in baseball.

So to do that in your first game......WOW.

It's also worth pointing out that he scored all four at even-strength. Which is just silly.

Alternatively, Mario scored five goals on four separate occasions.......so Matthews has something to shoot for.

Other Thoughts on Opening Night:

- Auston Matthew's 5v5 CF% was an INSANE 75%

- Michalek, Kadri and Komarov were even more dominant. Only the Leafs fourth line was under 50%.

- The Leafs deserved a better fate, as they controlled over 60% of the play, but their goaltending was terrible. However, it will almost never be that bad, so if they play even close to last night's game consistently, they won't just be a playoff team, they'll be a contender.



- If you lose in a 3v3 overtime, and when you played the whole game with only five D, it's not even really a loss. For the last place team to come out and play that game is almost as impressive as what Matthews did.

- Lost in the Matthews (deserved) hype, Mitch Marner also had an insane game. Only bad luck prevented him getting a hat-trick as well. He will never play in junior again, so that's cool.




- If you count Connor Carrick and William Nylander, who both played a few games last year, the Leafs seem to have added 3 x first line forwards and 2 x top-four defenseman to their lineup over the summer. (Nikita Zaitsev is the one I haven't mentioned). I think pretty much everyone underrated them in their preseason predictions.

- I feel like after that game, the Leafs are a lock for the Playoffs.

- The Oilers game was highly entertaining, but lets be real here: Calgary deserved to have won.

- I also watched a lot of the Hawks and Blues game, and the Hawks looked terrible.

- The Coyotes moved David Bolland and Chris Pronger to the Long-Term I.R, thus lowering their cap significantly and providing lots of roster flexibility going forward.

- All stats corsica.hockey
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