WESTMOUNT, Qc. — Mike Matheson was at Westmount High School on Thursday to talk to leadership students as part of a program he supports called Champions for Life, a foundation that helps teach leadership skills to young people.
The afternoon began with the students being asked to define the criteria that make someone a leader. Answers began trickling in, but then one got mentioned that struck Matheson in a very real way, so much so that he brought it up again about 20 minutes later.
It was a very insightful answer to the question. The student said that sometimes being a leader means getting out of the way and letting others succeed. That resonated with Matheson in a meaningful way.
“Somebody was talking about, and I’m not sure who it was back there, but sometimes it’s being the pusher and stepping out and being the first person to do something, the first person to respond, and sometimes getting out of the way and letting people flourish,” Matheson said. “So I think that answer really highlights the awareness, as a leader, as a champion, you’re constantly pulling people with you to reach a goal. And sometimes that means getting right out front and pulling, and sometimes that means encouraging somebody, finding what their strength is and highlighting that and giving them the boost to do it.”
That young student probably didn’t realize it at the time, but that answer was highly relevant to Matheson’s day job of being the No. 1 defenceman for the Montreal Canadiens, a team that will be starting training camp next week and will once again be looking to incorporate a number of young people, particularly at the position Matheson plays.
A couple of hours before Matheson addressed the students at Westmount High School, those young defencemen were speaking to reporters at the Canadiens’ practice facility in Brossard after the first on-ice session of rookie camp.
Logan Mailloux, David Reinbacher and Lane Hutson each took turns facing the media and answering questions they don’t have firm answers to. Are they ready to make the team? Is this their time? Of course they all believe they can make the jump to the NHL, but do they know it?
The reality is they can’t, and the further reality is their making the jump this season is different from Kaiden Guhle or Arber Xhekaj or Juraj Slafkovský in recent years because this team has expectations that things will be different for the Canadiens this season. Expectations are higher internally, probably far more so among the players than they are among observers or fans or probably even management.
The players who have been playing through this rebuild, the ones who have been losing far more often than they have been winning, are getting sick of it. Take this tidbit captain Nick Suzuki dropped this week at the NHL player media tour in Las Vegas as proof of that.
“Mistakes really weren’t the end of the world the last couple of years, but I’m excited to get back to winning ways,” he said. “Personally I feel like you can’t just keep stockpiling prospects. At some point — not every prospect that you draft is going to turn into probably what you thought, not everyone makes the team. But the guys that do, it’s our job to keep getting better.
“I want to be in the playoffs. I’ve been in the playoffs twice now, but they haven’t been in normal circumstances — I haven’t got to play at the Bell Centre in front of a sold-out crowd, so that’s definitely something I’m itching for this year.”
When Matheson told the kids at Westmount High School that the Canadiens were in a rebuild, he used air quotes around the word rebuild. Players aren’t wired to lose, which led Matheson to tell this anecdote about leadership and losing.
“I think last year there was a time where our team was really struggling,” he said. “We went through a few losses in a row, it was a tough stretch of the season where we’d lost a lot of games in a row, we had tough opponents. And then within a game we were losing, and then we were losing a little bit more, and then in the third period we just about gave up. It was kind of like we just mailed it in and went, we don’t have it tonight, we haven’t had it very much lately, let’s just get to the next game,” Matheson told the students. “And I felt like it was my responsibility in that situation to stand up after the game and call BS — excuse my language — and just kind of say that was not acceptable.
“Yes, we are in a rebuild, yes, we are young. We aren’t necessarily being told we should be doing things like making the playoffs and all that. But the only way we’re going to get there is if we believe we are, and we go into every single game thinking we are going to win. And if we aren’t, we still keep pushing.”
And so, in that environment, making the jump to the NHL is a little more difficult. But that doesn’t change the desire of these young prospects at rookie camp to make that jump.
“Of course I’m ready for the next step,” Reinbacher told reporters in Brossard. “That’s what you’ve got to do, that’s your job, so you’ve got to be ready every single day to get to the next level.”
This is where veteran leadership comes in, because if any of these young players make the jump this season, they will need to deal with the increased expectations their teammates have, that mistakes will not be tolerated like they were before, that mailing it in when a game seems lost in the third period is not acceptable.
And that makes that jump that much more difficult.
“Was it you, right on the aisle?” Matheson said later in his talk to students. “You said getting out of the way for people to flourish?”
He wanted to make sure he identified the young student who provided that nuanced look at leadership that Matheson appreciated so much. And really, that student nailed such an important aspect of the Canadiens’ leadership dynamics this season, and probably next season too, balancing the intolerance of mistakes and calling out unacceptable third-period performances with the need to nurture young players who may not help you win right away, but will clearly help you win down the road.
“I think there’s always a focus as one of the older guys on the team of what are you going to do for the younger guys, and it’s important because it’s not easy to come into the league and have success and endure what it is to be an NHL player and be consistent and all those things,” Matheson said. “But I think it’s important to understand that they’re there for a reason on their own merit, and that has nothing to do with me. So being able to be there for them when they need it, and then allowing them to flourish when they’re on the ice and when they’re doing their thing and not feeling like they have to take any sort of back seat.”
Slafkovský and Guhle and Caufield have probably already made the transition from mistake-prone young players to pseudo-veterans. But, air quotes or not, the Canadiens are still in a rebuild, and the players in rookie camp right now — and even those like Ivan Demidov and Michael Hage who are not there — represent the real winning potential for this organization.
And having players like Matheson who understand the push and pull of leadership, that sometimes it takes a hard conversation and sometimes it takes getting out of the way, is just as vital as having those young talents who will ultimately push this organization to new levels.
Which makes it that much more appropriate Matheson got a reminder of that from a high school student.
— The Athletic’s Michael Russo contributed to this report
(Photo of Mike Matheson surrounded by Westmount High School students: Arpon Basu / The Athletic)
