Don Cherry offers Auston Matthews some advice after he chose not to drop the gloves with Travis Konecny

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Josh tupper
November 7, 2022 (3:04 PM)

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Last week Auston Matthews set the hockey world ablaze, not with his offensive skill, but with his resistance to dropping the gloves with Travis Konecny. With less than two-minutes remaining in the game Auston engaged with Konecny until Mark Giordano came to his rescue. Matthews then stood by while both Giordano and linemate, Michael Bunting dropped the gloves.

Matthews behavior drew significant criticism from former NHLer Mike Rupp and many sports analyst alike. Last year Matthews underwent wrist surgery before going onto score 60 goals. It would be silly to expect Matthews to drop the gloves and Canadian Legend Don Cherry agrees.

During this week's edition of the Grapevine Podcast, Cherry offered the following advice to Matthews:

I like Matthews, he's a good goal scorer and everything but you just can't do that when you're a goal scorer. He's gotta learn, just skate away. Don't stand there laughing while some other guy is fighting your battle for you.

You have to take it like Lafleur. The only time Lafleur ever got mad was when him and Mike Milbury used to go at it. Don't start anything and just leave it alone and when the fight is going on don't stand there and laugh.

It's hard to disagree with Cherry's assessment of the situation. When you look around the league players like Connor McDavid, Cale Makar and Leon Draisaitl all have combined for zero career fights. There is no reason for Auston Matthews to be dropping the gloves, but skating away while his teammates are battling leaves his team at a disadvantage.

Hopefully Matthews learns from this situation, because it's only a matter of time before the time comes and help doesn't arrive in time if he starts something he's unwilling to finish.