When I first pitched a piece on Mike Matheson, Florida’s first round pick (23rd Overall) in the 2012 draft, my intention was to try to manage expectations. Unlike other recent first rounders in Huberdeau, Barkov, and Ekblad, Matheson has always been much less of a sure thing. That first draft of this piece opened with:
Mike Matheson is not Aaron Ekblad. You know that, or you should, but say it again to yourself a couple more times. Mike Matheson is not Aaron Ekblad. Mike Matheson is not Aaron Ekblad. He is not Seth Jones or Olli Määttä or Jacob Trouba or Jonas Brodin.
And that’s okay.
Then the rookie tournament happened.
Kris came back from the game against Washington gushing about Matheson, the kind that makes a girl say, “Come on, man, how am I supposed to lower expectations here?” and then I went and watched the game against Nashville. There were a lot of quality prospects on the ice, and I tried to watch most of them, but it was hard to take my eyes off of Matheson. As Kris said in our staff chat, “I’ve never seen any of our defensemen look that good at any camp.” The game against Nashville was generally terrible for the Panthers but Matheson was magnificent.
We are now a Mike Matheson appreciation twitter/blog.
— The Sunshine Skate (@SunshineSkateFL) September 13, 2015
Managing Expectations
Still, I don’t want to get your hopes up too high. The way Ekblad took off in his first regular season NHL game compared to his preseason and camp performances was completely unexpected. It would be a mistake to think that Mike Matheson can make a jump that big that fast — he is not Aaron Ekblad. “Well, then, who is he?” Let’s find out:
Matheson is a smooth-skating, puck-moving, Canadian defenseman with red hair and if you aren’t thinking of Brian Campbell, you really should be. He plays a very similar game, perhaps in part because he explicitly models his game on Campbell’s, as well as that of Pittsburgh defenseman Kris Letang. Dale Tallon has compared his game to that of Duncan Keith. Remember, these comparisons are stylistic and not an indication of where we expect Matheson to be right now.
Early knocks on Matheson as a prospect were that he needed to get stronger, faster, smarter, and more disciplined. Taking the college route for his development, an unusual move for a Canadian player, likely helped him significantly with the first three of those weaknesses. Matheson has specifically cited the additional gym and practice time afforded to NCAA players versus QMJHL players (Matheson was expected to be the first overall pick in the 2010 QMJHL draft had he elected to play major juniors) as reasons why he ultimately chose to play college hockey.
While he may have managed similar results going the Canadian route, his penalty minute totals also improved over the course of his career at Boston College, dropping from 78 his first year to 49 his second and 26 his third. He did this without sacrificing offense, tallying 25 points in both his first and third seasons.
Offensive Production
Okay, but what about the points? Florida is a club starved for offense and Matheson is an offensively oriented player. If you looked at that previous Brian Campbell comparison earlier and groaned because you’re frustrated by Campbell’s recent lack of goal scoring, there’s good news for you: the biggest difference between their styles of play is that Matheson shoots much more frequently than Campbell does.
The bad news, however, certainly looks like that stagnant point total between his freshman and junior seasons. While his totals did not improve year to year, they did remain level and were spectacular enough as a freshman that they remained respectable through the end of his time at BC. Every year, he led BC in scoring by a defenseman. Now, I’m going to throw a lot of rankings at you real quick, for an idea of where he was in relation to other college defensemen as far as offense goes:
As a freshman, Matheson finished 1st in Hockey East in overall points by a freshman defenseman and 2nd in points by any defenseman. Beyond his conference, he finished 3rd in all of college hockey in points by a freshman defenseman. Within his conference, he finished 2nd among freshmen defenseman, although he played three games less than the player who finished 1st, and 3rd among all defensemen. At year’s end, he was named to the Hockey East all-rookie team.
As a sophomore, Matheson was slightly less dazzling, managing only 21 points in 38 games versus his freshman campaign’s 25 points in 36 games. His finishes were likewise less impressive — for overall numbers, he finished 41st in the NCAA and 8th in Hockey East, while falling all the way to 9th in Hockey East in scoring by a defenseman for in-conference scoring. As a note here, he was 1st in assists per game for in-conference games, but scored no goals in conference games, which may have factored into his rankings. That year, he racked up the postseason awards and was named to the Hockey East 1st all-star team, the NCAA East 2nd all-american team, and the NCAA New England D1 all-stars.
His junior year, Matheson was named captain and again had 25 points, this time in 38 games. Those four additional points helped him finish 14th in NCAA scoring by a defenseman and 7th in Hockey East in both his in-conference and overall numbers. At the very end of the year, he signed a professional contract and left Boston to play in five games with the San Antonio Rampage, where he tallied two assists and eight penalty minutes.
Looking Forward
It’s promising stuff, if not necessarily what legends are made of. With the Panthers’ top five players from last year’s much improved defense all locked in and Kampfer looking to lock down the number six slot, Matheson doesn’t have to be anything other than what he is: easily Florida’s best blueline prospect (Aaron Ekblad is not a prospect). While he’s looked very good so far in preseason camps and games, including scoring the game winner in three-on-three overtime against Nashville, he doesn’t need to make the jump right now. He can spend some time in the AHL, develop further, and be an even better player when he does begin his NHL career.
Mike Matheson is almost certainly going to be a very good NHL defenseman one day. It may not be this season and he will never be the league’s best defenseman, but he doesn’t have to be ready now and he doesn’t have to be the best: he just has to be as good as he can be and that’s really a nice change for once. It shows how far Florida has come in the last few years: they drafted a defenseman in the first round and he isn’t going to have to be “The Savior”. He’s just going to have to play.
Angie can be reached for contact on Twitter.
