One of several bright spots in the first quarter of this season has been the solid play of young defenseman Denton Mateychuk. IMO, he is fast becoming one of the core players the CBJ will build around in the coming decade. He is barely 21 years old and is already in our Top 4, and lately has been getting a lot of ice time on our top D pairing.

He's not the biggest guy, but he skates well, protects the puck when he is carrying it, knows where he needs to be on D and when he goes into the corners, he comes out with the puck. At the offensive end of the ice DM has a knack for getting into the soft spots in the opponent's defense to create scoring opportunities. (At the Quarter Pole he has 5 goals and 4 assists and is a +2) My favorite skill however is that, whether it's making the right pass, or skating, he gets the puck out of his own zone with no drama.

Yet, the national media, doesn't seem to talk much about him. Cale Makar, Lane Hutson and Quinn Hughes get all the love (I haven't watched the NYI phenom Matt Schaefer play yet, but he is off to a fast start in his rookie year and has the New York media behind him, so he will join this list soon.)

Am I biased by saying DM is on a trajectory to contribute as much (or nearly as much) to our team as those four D contribute to theirs? Or is this just another case of biased Canadian media not paying attention to Columbus until we kick the door down?