{"id":459204,"date":"2026-02-15T22:52:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T22:52:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/459204\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T22:52:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T22:52:16","slug":"auston-matthews-showed-a-side-leafs-fans-rarely-see-and-it-got-everyones-attention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/459204\/","title":{"rendered":"Auston Matthews showed a side Leafs fans rarely see, and it got everyone\u2019s attention"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t \"Jan <\/p>\n

Photo credit: Bob Frid-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

Team USA and Toronto Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews showed some new fire that fans aren’t used to, and it could be a great sign going forward.<\/p>\n

Matthews’ anger boils over in rare display of emotion<\/p>\n

But it’s what happened during their game against Denmark that is starting to get some attention considering it’s something we have really never seen from Matthews — fighting spirit.<\/p>\n

During the game, things got a little testy with Matthews camping in front of the Danish net, with him getting into a scuffle that saw him wildly throwing shoves and taking on several players at once:<\/p>\n

He had some parting words as well before cooler heads prevailed, and there must have been some hidden grievances that boiled over because we never see Matthews get this frustrated.<\/p>\n

Fans are split on Matthews’ new aggressive side<\/p>\n

It’s something that fans pointed out as well on social media, though not without taking a couple shots of their own towards the American captain:<\/p>\n

However there are several that pointed out that if Matthews ended up getting more involved in the NHL, it wouldn’t end well for him thanks to some potential bias:<\/p>\n

Though it’s something we haven’t seen a lot of from Matthews, who prefers to let his scoring and offense speak for itself; we have seen this from him before:<\/p>\n

It’s not like Matthews is someone who is bereft of emotion, as he has no issues playing to the crowd, getting a bit mouthy at times, and clearly when pushed too far he pushes back.<\/p>\n

He can certainly show more emotion in the NHL, but there’s a careful line he has to toe between showing aggression and being undisciplined so for those hoping he starts fighting consistently are going to be a bit disappointed.<\/p>\n

Previously on Hockey Patrol<\/p>\n

POLL<\/p>\n

5 HOURS AGO|236 ANSWERS<\/p>\n

Auston Matthews showed a side Leafs fans rarely see, and it got everyone\u2019s attention<\/p>\n

Does Auston Matthews need to fight more?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Photo credit: Bob Frid-Imagn Images Team USA and Toronto Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews showed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459205,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5106],"tags":[15232,532,22485,5,20,5172,4,7667,3255,66,31,5171],"class_list":["post-459204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto-maple-leafs","tag-2026-olympics","tag-auston-matthews","tag-fighting","tag-hockey","tag-maple-leafs","tag-mapleleafs","tag-nhl","tag-social-media","tag-team-usa","tag-toronto","tag-toronto-maple-leafs","tag-torontomapleleafs"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116077104825403580","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}