Matthews is playing injured. He didn’t go to Germany in the middle of the season to try the Weiner Schnitzel.
Matthews, who was largely invisible in the gold medal game except for those glorious scoring chances late in the third period and overtime, has a chronic shoulder injury / condition that will probably plague him his entire career. He missed one game in the tournament and hardly practiced with his team. We should respect the courage he showed playing last night.
It was an intense game between two evenly matched teams. It could have gone either way. I think that even the most die hard Canadian fan has to realize that the Americans have now clearly caught up to Canada in the depth and quality of the players / talent that each country now produces. The days when some (most) Canadians could smugly (and erroneously) claim that we could send two or three teams to these best on best competitions and who could each win, are long over. Going forward, it will be a life and death effort to match and beat the hockey powerhouse that has emerged south of our 'arbitrary, boarder. In fact, it has been that way since the mid 1990s. Just most Canadians were blind to that uncomfortable reality.