Patrick Williams, TheAHL.com Options Author
It’s the maturity and composure that actually bounce out most with Cleveland Monsters rookie Denton Mateychuk.
Definitely the on-ice parts are there within the 20-year-old’s recreation. Cell. Strikes the puck fairly properly. He’s 5-foot-11, 185 kilos, however sturdy hockey sense and instincts enable him to deal with the sport’s put on and tear, taking over a heavy workload every evening.
The entire must-haves for a top-end defenseman of this period, Mateychuk has them.
It’s straightforward to see what the Columbus Blue Jackets noticed within the Manitoba native once they selected him twelfth total within the 2022 NHL Draft. Mateychuk additional justified that decide final season in captaining Moose Jaw of the Western Hockey League to a league championship and a berth within the Memorial Cup. He was named most respected participant of the WHL postseason, delivering 30 factors (11 targets, 19 assists) in 20 playoff video games, and earned a spot on the Memorial Cup event all-star group. All of that adopted an distinctive common season, as Mateychuk received the Invoice Hunter Memorial Trophy because the WHL’s defenseman of the yr after a 75-point (17 targets, 58 assists) effort in solely 52 video games. He additionally represented Canada on the 2024 IIHF World Junior Championship.
So it’s clear why Monsters head coach Trent Vogelhuber may really feel comfy inserting Mateychuk, then nonetheless solely 19, into an exceptionally high-stakes, high-pressure scenario within the Japanese Convention Finals towards Hershey final spring. Cleveland had dropped the primary three video games of the best-of-seven sequence, and it seemed like a powerful season was close to its finish.
Mateychuk instantly slot in regardless of the troublesome circumstances. His stable debut in Sport 4 at Cleveland, simply six days after he had been competing for the Memorial Cup, helped the Monsters to increase their season. He went on to file an help in every of his subsequent three video games – together with organising the time beyond regulation winner in Sport 6 – and it rapidly appeared like he had been a daily all season reasonably than somebody who had simply arrived.
The expertise made an impression on Mateychuk as he headed into the summer season and his offseason coaching program, which included work on enhancing his shot.
“Having that have, taking part in in these video games, seeing the construction – the little particulars which can be so simply neglected,” Mateychuk mentioned, “you’ve received to take an additional second to consider and put within the work to see that.”
It was a shortened summer season for Mateychuk however he got here able to go in Columbus, captaining the Blue Jackets’ entry on the Buffalo Sabres Prospect Problem. He then received a severe look in NHL preseason play, and ended up staying with the Blue Jackets till the tip of coaching camp once they lastly despatched him to Cleveland. Columbus has a crowded protection corps within the NHL, which permits younger prospects like Mateychuk, David Jiricek and Corson Ceulemans – all current first-round draft picks – to proceed coming alongside within the AHL.
The Monsters will deliver a six-game successful streak into this weekend as they host Milwaukee on Saturday and Sunday. At 10-4-0-1, Cleveland holds third place in what’s trying like it will likely be an exceptionally sturdy North Division discipline this season. With 16 factors (six targets, 10 assists) in 15 video games, Mateychuk has himself first amongst defensemen and solely three factors off the general AHL scoring lead. Final week he amassed seven factors in 4 video games, together with back-to-back time beyond regulation game-winners at Windfall, to earn the Howies Hockey Tape/AHL Participant of the Week award.
For now, the Blue Jackets are capable of let Mateychuk proceed to develop with Cleveland. Finally, in fact, Columbus administration must decide, however that’s hardly a foul downside to have. Mateychuk, whose depth rapidly earned him consideration from TSN eventually winter’s World Junior Championship, has taken this time in Cleveland as one other step in his journey. When the Blue Jackets assigned him to Cleveland, they gave him an easy goal.
“‘You’re going to have an excellent alternative right here at the beginning of the yr,’” he recounted the Blue Jackets telling him. “‘Benefit from it.’
“That’s what I’ve been making an attempt to do.”
On the American Hockey League beat for twenty years, TheAHL.com options author Patrick Williams additionally at the moment covers the league for NHL.com and FloSports and is a daily contributor on SiriusXM NHL Community Radio. He was the recipient of the AHL’s James H. Ellery Memorial Award for his excellent protection of the league in 2016.
