Politics aside, Auston Matthews should have skipped White House visit | Opinion

Blame the NHL scheduler-makers for putting so many U.S. Olympians in a spot where they had to choose between team and country.

Politics aside, Auston Matthews should probably not have gone to the White House on Tuesday, Feb. 24.

Not because it was divisive. But because it was detrimental to his goal of getting the Toronto Maple Leafs into the playoffs.

Matthews, who was criticized for his lack of leadership early on at the 2026 Winter Olympics and then praised for it at the end, was the captain of the U.S. team that won gold. And now that his Olympic experience has ended, his job is to show that same leadership with the Leafs.

That not only means being in the lineup when the Leafs play the Tampa Bay Lightning on Wednesday, Feb. 25 – but also putting himself in a position to succeed. Even if that meant skipping a late-night party in Miami or a political photo-op in Washington, D.C.

Jake Guentzel, who is on that Lightning team that will play Toronto in Tampa on Wednesday, skipped the festivities and headed back home. And that's a Lightning team that is in first place in the Eastern Conference.