Auston Matthews sought out close friend Patrick Marleau during the summer regarding the charge of disorderly conduct against the Maple Leafs’ star centre.
“There is always two sides to every story,” Marleau, now back with the San Jose Sharks, said a few hours before the Leafs and Sharks met at Scotiabank Arena on Friday night.
“I had saw him in the summer and talked about it. It’s hard how things get played out in the media sometimes. Everything is a learning experience. You have to learn from it and move on. I think he knows that.”
So yes, Marleau knew of the charge brought against Matthews in July in Scottsdale, Ariz., long before the Leafs knew. General manager Kyle Dubas and others in the front office didn’t have knowledge of the charge, which stemmed from an alleged incident on May 26 outside Matthews’ condo, until it became public in September.
That Matthews sought out a friend before his employer perhaps isn’t overly surprising. Marleau wasn’t asked whether he advised Matthews to tell Leafs management.
“I don’t think he thought it was going to be as big an issue as it has become,” Marleau said.
Matthews is alleged to have pulled down his pants, but not his underwear, in view of a female security guard. This after Matthews and some friends allegedly tried to get into the security guard’s car while she was in it.
The case remains before the court in Scottsdale. A trial readiness conference has been set for Nov. 27.
Another close pal of Marleau, Leafs winger Mitch Marner, had off-ice issues that required advice. For Marner, it was contract negotiations that dragged through the summer before he signed not long after training camp opened in September.
“Just tried to be there for him, support, be a sounding board, when you’re going through negotiations and things aren’t going well, the emotions run high and they can go up and down,” Marleau said.
“Sometimes it’s just good to have somebody to talk to and listen to you. That was about it.”
In Marleau’s two seasons with the Leafs, a tenure which ended in June when he was traded to the Carolina Hurricanes along with a conditional first-round draft pick and a seventh-round pick for a sixth-rounder to clear cap space, what kept the club from advancing past the first round of the playoffs?
“We were right there against Boston those two years, especially last year,” Marleau said. “In playoffs, it’s a game of inches, a game of bounces, you get a couple bounces here or there and it’s a different outcome. You never know what can happen from there.”
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October 26, 2019 at 04:22AM
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