I’m going to open this profile with a fun and relevant fact that I only just learned while preparing to write it. Denton Mateychuk is cousins with Owen Pickering, the defenseman out of Swift Current in the WHL I profiled yesterday. I didn’t even know that when I chose each to profile as potential first round picks for the Leafs.
What makes that funnier is that each of them are very different in their profiles and their recent background history. Where Pickering was a lower pick in the WHL (9th round), Mateychuk was taken 11th overall. Where Pickering had a more offensive profile, he had modest point totals until this season when he had his first real breakout.