Gord Miller mentioned that on the TSN broadcast last night that Matthews was unable to obtain a visa. He could be ok on an Everett team with Noah Juulsen (the reason Matthews was brought up in the conversation) and Nikita Scherbak.
Based on what I continue to hear, the chances of Matthews being able to secure a work visa for Switzerland is not good. Apparently, if he was Canadian this would not be an issue since the two countries have an agreement in place and the work visa would be automatic. Unfortunately, he is an American and the same agreements do not exist.
My guess is that he ends up in the WHL but only after Everett trades him to another team.
Gord Miller mentioned that on the TSN broadcast last night that Matthews was unable to obtain a visa. He could be ok on an Everett team with Noah Juulsen (the reason Matthews was brought up in the conversation) and Nikita Scherbak.
XGL - 16 Team, Points Dynasty League
$114M cap, 54+ Players, Year #16 - 1st(6x): 08, 12-13, 16, 18-19
F(9+3R): Rantanen, P Kane, Bergeron, Lindholm, Tarasenko, Kadri, Olofsson+
R: Newhook, Perfetti+
D(5+2R): Makar, Hronek, Dunn, Sanheim, Andersson
R: Seider, Harley+
G(2+1R): Price, Varly
WHL - 24 Team Dobber League (Lake Valley Thunder) - 2020/21 Champion
F: Aho, Bergeron, OV, Hintz, Hoffman+
D: Hedman, Makar, Werenski, Hronek+
G: Andersen, Lankinen, Oettinger
R: Reichel, Timmins, Bjornfot, Cormier, Johnston+
Looks like he's going again.
https://twitter.com/MalkinInTheMid/s...68615537733632
It's official, Austin Matthews will be playing for @zsclions next season
10 Team, Points Only, Cash League
25 Man Roster (no position), top 20 point getters count at end of month
Keep 20/25 at seasons end, Cut 5 to FA for redrafting
Goalie points W=2pt L=-1pt SHO=2pt
Stamkos, Tavares, Eichel, Mercer, JRobertson, RThomas, Kucherov, Nugent-Hopkins, Tuch, KConnor, Necas, Point, Konecny, SJarvis, Cozenz, Morrissey, Bouchard, Josi, Novak, Tolvanen, Peterka, SBennett
G- Vasilevskiy, Sorokin, Oettinger
"Cleavage is like the sun. You can look, but dont stare.. Unless you're wearing sunglasses."
Interesting move...but what a great chance to experience Europe while still playing at an elite level...and surely $ is involved in there too. Lets the kid develop without as much heavy media as he would get here.
WHL - World Hockey League (24-Team Daily H2H) Est. 2015
Vancouver Voodoo
C: Scheifele, Sedin, Stastny, Zetterberg
LW: Panarin, Landeskog,
RW: P. Kane, , Meier, Mantha, Anderson, Coyle, Hansen
D: Carlson, Faulk, Hamilton, Trouba, Goligoski, Matheson
G: Andersen, Mason
Minors: Demko, Virtanen, Walman, Benson, Gourde, Boqvist, Glass, Foote, Claesson, Gaudette
12 team, keep 15 H2H Weekly
Crosby, Malkin, Seguin, Kessel, Kucherov, Byfuglien, OEL, Klingberg, Holtby, Quick, Scheifele, Hellebuyck, Simmonds, Arvidsson, Schenn
https://image.ibb.co/k3o8Sa/dobber_banner_sig.jpg
Oh! This will be interesting to follow next season.
He'll get a decent amout of games played (assuming he plays all 50) and against better competition than he would in junior.
The only bad thing is that he would learn to dominate in the juniors, be a leader and learn to deal with the media.
At least he will play for a good head coach in Marc Crawford.
10 Team, Points Only, Cash League
25 Man Roster (no position), top 20 point getters count at end of month
Keep 20/25 at seasons end, Cut 5 to FA for redrafting
Goalie points W=2pt L=-1pt SHO=2pt
Stamkos, Tavares, Eichel, Mercer, JRobertson, RThomas, Kucherov, Nugent-Hopkins, Tuch, KConnor, Necas, Point, Konecny, SJarvis, Cozenz, Morrissey, Bouchard, Josi, Novak, Tolvanen, Peterka, SBennett
G- Vasilevskiy, Sorokin, Oettinger
"Cleavage is like the sun. You can look, but dont stare.. Unless you're wearing sunglasses."
Several former NHL players over there.
MA Bergeron, Dan Fritsche (didn't know he was Swiss), Robet Nilsson, Ryan Shannon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZSC_Lions
Who is Ryan Keller?
Seems a lot of NA guys have joined up in the Swiss league.
Must be something nice about that league.
I talked to an NHL scout this morning and he thinks this is a stupid idea on Matthews part. I agree. Sure he will earn $500,000 or whatever his salary will be but he will also learn habits from a bunch of players who were too soft to hack it in the NHL. Like Dobber always says (paraphrasing a bit), the Swiss league is the place to go when you just want to earn a paycheque. The longest travel for most teams is less than a 2 hour drive.
The worst part about this decision is that Matthews is going to miss all of training camp and the first couple of weeks of the season or 10% of the regular season. His teammates are not going to love that their pre-season started on August 6th and he's going to waltz into the dressing room 6 weeks later at 18 years and a day old.
finally it's official. It's been known for a long time, there were just problems with his permit because he's a minor.
I'm certainly going to a home game this year to see him play, usually I don't care about the Swiss league.
That's not exactly true, but yes, it's a small country. But it's still one of the best leagues in Europe. KHL aside, but if you go to play to Europe, what other league would be significantly better? Also, we're talking about a 17-year old kid. It's not like free agent Stamkos decides to go to Switzerland because he says the NHL has become too stressful.
Obviously, you can't compare the league to the NHL. I mean guys like Randy Robitaille, Matt Lombardi and Glen Metropolit won the scoring title Then again, what league can you compare to the NHL? I've seen random overagers win CHL scoring titles too.
Marc Crawford will take care of that. Also, it's not true either. You can have a maximum of 4 foreigners on the ice. Not all of them have an NHL past, and not all of them failed because they were too soft. Some simply don't have the talent to go that far. That doesn't mean that they aren't hard workers. Sure, there are several NHL outcasts in the league, but your friend scout sounds like the league is full of them, while they maybe make up like 3-5% of the league. And the NCAA doesn't have soft players or what? Are those all perfect athletes that know what it takes to play in the NHL? No, while some of the pro players actually do.
No offense, but that's quite a ridiculous statement he made.
Very interesting story.. That's a ton of cash for a kid that hasn't been drafted into the NHL..
Will this kid save the Arizona Coyotes, at next years draft, once the yotes draft him??
Zorro says "vote for Dobber"
Angus is my best friend at dobberhockey..
Good for him and also good for his mother who will stay in Switzerland one year !!
1) 16 teams full keeper H2H. Start 9F, 4D, 1G, 2 Championships
pts: (D : 7 pts G /5 pts A), (F : 5pts G /3 pts A), (G : 10 pts W / 5 pts SO), (D/F : 1 pt +/-, 0.5 pts PIM, 0.1 FOW, 0.2 Hits, 0.3 pts SOG, PP and SH).
Forward : Aho, Svechnikov, PLDubois, Giroux, Couture, Wheeler, Cozens, Karlsson, Vrana, Anderson,Greenway,
Defenses : Dahlin, Fox, Doughty, Toews, , Slavin, Miller
Goalies : Oettinger, Vanecek, Bobrovsky
Prospects : Dostal, Schmid, Chinakhov, Bordeleau, Ostlund, Brindley, Gulyayev
Keeper league 14 teams (H2H, 20 active players keep 16 NHLers, 16 minors)
Scoring Cats: G-A-PTS-PPG-PPA-(+/-)-HITS-BLK-SHP-SOG-FOW-GWG / W-L-SVS-SV%-GAA-SO
C- Crosby, Barzal, Bennett, Schmaltz, Novak
W- Forsberg, Batherson, Nichuskin, Tuch, Konecny, Maccelli, Sharangovich, Bertuzzi, Kaliyev, Neighbours, Reichel
D- Carlson, Rielly, Klingberg
G- Hellebuyck, Demko, Merzlikins, Vejmelka
Minors:
F: Fantilli, Cooley, Bourgault, Perreault, Cowan, Ohgren, N. Foote, Goyette, Iskhakov, Denisenko, Tracey
D: Simashev, Willander, Lambos
G: Schmidt, Rodrigue, DiPietro, Gaudreau, McKay
Good for him. Why should he play for nothing in the WHL, when he can make good money playing with men in Europe?
There are undoubtedly a number of negatives you could come up with (travel, shorter season, etc)...but I would suggest already getting over the jump to pro hockey, having a veteran pro coach needling him, etc, is worth it.