Auston Matthews: U.S. banking on star centre for ice hockey glory at Beijing 2022

For those who don't follow international ice hockey regularly, the following stat may come as a surprise.

Despite its position as a traditional powerhouse in the sport alongside Canada, Russia, and Sweden, the United States has only won four senior men's international tournaments in its history – World Championships gold in 1933, Olympic gold in 1960 and 1980, and a World Cup title in 1996. Their 1960 Olympic Games triumph also doubled as that year's World Championships crown.

It's a record the U.S. would dearly love to change, although with the annual World Championships often over-lapping with the National Hockey League (NHL) playoffs, American teams at the Worlds often find themselves hamstrung at tournaments without their best players involved in the Stanley Cup Finals.

Enter Auston Matthews.

The 24-year-old Toronto Maple Leafs centre is a former first overall pick in the NHL draft, former NHL Rookie of the Year, and the league's top goalscorer last season.

So it's not hard to see why the California-born, Arizona-raised hotshot, who won two world under-18 titles with the U.S. team, is being seen as the man who can finally lead the senior side to glory at February's Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics.

Auston Matthews' start in hockey in Arizona

Arizona is hardly a hotbed of hockey, despite the NHL's Coyotes playing in first Phoenix, then Glendale. That team has long struggled with finances and has been the subject of rumours and speculation over a move away from the state, dating back to the 2000s.

Only four Arizona-born players have registered at least 150 games in the NHL – one of them grew up in and represents Canada, while the other three are sons of former Phoenix Coyotes players, born while their fathers played for the franchise.

So, perhaps unsurprisingly, although Matthews took up hockey as a child, he was also very adept at another sport far more popular in the state – baseball.

His family were also not well-versed in hockey – his mother grew up in Mexico, where the sport is not on the radar compared to baseball and football. But having the Coyotes in his backyard – in addition to baseball's slower pace of play – made the difference for Matthews, who ended up choosing to focus on playing for the Arizona Bobcats minor hockey team.

Speaking at a recent U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) media summit, Matthews paid tribute to his parents for their role in his development.

"They made a numerous amount of sacrifices for myself, for my two sisters, to help us achieve our goals and succeed at we were passionate about, so I feel really lucky to have those two in my life just supporting me along the way," he said.

Thanks to that support, Matthews quickly moved up through the ranks of minor hockey, catching the eye of USA Hockey administrators who added him to the national team development program aged just 15.

From there, it's been a meteoric rise.

Playing pro in Switzerland before being drafted

Matthews was drafted first overall in the 2016 NHL Draft by the Leafs, but everything up to that point had already suggested he was American hockey's next big thing.

In 2013, he moved away from his family to join USA Hockey's under-18 programme in Michigan, where he broke records for goals and points and was named the Most Valuable Player at the 2015 IIHF World Under-18 Championships.

Having been born on 17 September – a birthday he shares with another NHL great, the three-time Olympian Alexander Ovechkin – Matthews was two days too young to qualify for the 2015 NHL Draft.

Instead of seeing out his time with the junior national team, Matthews decided to turn pro, playing in Switzerland and nearly winning that league's MVP award in his one and only season in 2015–16.

That set him up for the 2016 Draft, where he became the first American in nine years to go first overall. The last American to be the first overall pick before him will be a teammate of his in Beijing, Patrick Kane.

"[Kane is] somebody that I looked up to a lot growing up and one of my favourite players to watch still today," Matthews said during the USOPC summit.

"I've been fortunate to spend time with him in the summer, skating with him, training with him a little bit. And he's just an incredible player and puts you on the edge of your seat any time you're watching or you're out there with him. So I'm really looking forward to that possibility [of playing with him in Beijing]."

Matthews' playing style and goal-scoring records

On the ice, Matthews is noted for being a skilful player with soft hands and finesse despite his large, powerful frame, standing as he does at 6-foot-3 (1.91m) and 220 pounds (100 kg).

He lived up to all the hype immediately when he became the first NHL player to score four goals on his debut since two men scored five each in the league's very first game in 1917.

That season, he set new franchise marks for rookie goals and rookie points in a season – 40 goals and 69 points, and was just three votes shy of a unanimous selection as the NHL's Calder Memorial Trophy (rookie of the year award) winner.

It took him less than three full seasons to rack up 100 goals in the league, despite having missed time due to injuries, becoming the first Toronto player to score 30 goals in each of his first three seasons in the NHL. It's a streak he has extended twice, scoring a career-high 47 goals in the 2019-20 season followed by 41 last year in just 52 games during a season shortened by the pandemic.

Those 41 goals won him his first Rocket Richard Trophy, awarded to the league's top scorer every year. It also saw him named the cover athlete of EA Sports' NHL 22 video game, just two years after he was first given that honour for the 2020 game.

Beijing 2022 Olympic aspirations

Given that very impressive career résumé from just six professional seasons for the forward, perhaps it isn't surprising to learn that there is athletic ability in the Matthews family.

Wes Matthews, Auston's great-uncle, was an American football wide receiver who played for the Miami Dolphins during that team's first season in 1966, while Auston's younger sister Breyana plays college golf for Arizona State University.

So is the pressure on to do well at Beijing?

Matthews, already an old hand at media interviews, was non-committal at the USOPC media day.

"Gold is absolutely on our minds. I've been fortunate to represent the U.S. before, but obviously never at the biggest stage, which is the Olympics."

Matthews has some experience of senior international play – at the 2016 World Cup of Hockey, organised by the NHL, he featured for an under-23 North America team competing against other countries' elite national teams.

"Hopefully playing in that kind of helps me prepare for this a little bit, but from everybody that I've talked to that's been fortunate enough to compete in Olympics, there's just nothing like it," he said.

"I don't know what to expect. Just try to go in there with an open mind and just have as much fun as possible."

If he has as much fun as he does scoring goals for the Maple Leafs, the U.S. will certainly be a threat.

No wonder American fans are excited about the possibility of finally making a mark on international hockey.