Matthews TOR 4NF bug

Auston Matthews was named captain of Team USA for the 4 Nations Face-Off on Wednesday.

The 27-year-old center is in his first season as captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs. The 4 Nations Face-Off will be the first time Matthews will represent the United States since joining the NHL for the 2016-17 season.

"I mean, it's a huge honor, obviously just to be able to represent your country is pretty special," Matthews said Friday. "But to have the honor of wearing the 'C,' it's exciting. It's definitely not lost on me, the amount of leaders that are already on this team, guys that you know maybe wear letters for their respective clubs. But, it's definitely something that I'm not taken for granted. I mean, it's pretty special."

Team USA’s leadership group will also include alternate captains Matthew Tkachuk of the Florida Panthers and Charlie McAvoy of the Boston Bruins.

"We are thrilled to have Auston, Matthew, and Charlie leading our team at the 4 Nations Face-Off," said Team USA general manager Bill Guerin, who holds the same role with the Minnesota Wild. "They all bring leadership skills in different ways, and together represent the drive, desire and passion we need in not only representing our country, but in helping achieve our ultimate goal."

Matthews, Tkachuk and McAvoy have played together twice on the international stage for Team USA, helping the U.S. earn gold at the 2015 IIHF Under-18 Men’s World Championship and bronze at the 2016 World Junior Championship.

In addition, Matthews, who was born in California but grew up in Arizona, played for the gold medal-winning U.S. at the 2014 Under-17 Men’s World Championship and the 2014 Under-18 World Junior Championship.

He played for Team North America at the 2016 World Cup of Hockey.

The 4 Nations Face-Off is an international tournament featuring teams made up of only NHL players from Canada, Finland, Sweden and the United States.

The teams will play each other once in a round-robin format starting on Feb. 12 at Bell Centre in Montreal. The final day of the round robin is Feb. 17 at TD Garden in Boston, with the two top teams advancing to the championship game on Feb. 20 in Boston.

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Team USA will play its first game at the 4 Nations Face-Off at Bell Centre in Montreal against Finland on Feb. 13 (8 p.m. ET; ESPN, ESPN+, SN, TVAS).

Matthews, who missed 15 games earlier this season with an upper-body injury, has 38 points (20 goals, 18 assists) for Toronto this season. He has led the NHL in goals three times, including last season, when he scored an NHL career-high 69. He won the Hart Trophy as League MVP, and Ted Lindsay Award, which is awarded to the “most outstanding player” in the NHL as voted by fellow members of the NHL Players' Association in 2021-22.

He also won the Calder Trophy as NHL rookie of the year in 2016-17 after he was selected No. 1 by Toronto in the 2016 NHL Draft.

Since entering the League, Matthews leads the NHL with 388 goals.

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