{"id":491486,"date":"2026-02-22T06:10:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T06:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/491486\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T06:10:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T06:10:07","slug":"auston-matthews-just-delivered-the-most-jaw-dropping-moment-of-the-winter-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/491486\/","title":{"rendered":"Auston Matthews just delivered the most jaw-dropping moment of the Winter Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5t\">While Toronto Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews is receiving some undeserved criticism for his performance at the 2026 Winter Olympics not being up to the game-breaking standards that his Canadian counterpart Connor McDavid has put on display, he&#8217;s still playing very well while representing his country. And maybe the thing that defines his under-the-radar impact more than anything is the fact that no one really noticed one of the best passes we&#8217;ve seen this decade, and no one was really talking about it.<\/p>\n<p>Auston Matthews makes one of the best passes all-time during Olympic action<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5z\">Just minutes into the third period of the United States&#8217; semifinal against Slovakia, Jake Guentzel flipped the puck backhand while being pressured by an opposing defender. It was then attempted to be intercepted by a separate Slovakian player but it bobbled up into the air. With maybe the most swift mid-air motion to make the play, Matthews, with just one hand on his stick, then redirected the floating puck and knocked it up to his linemate Matt Boldy for a clean play.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Possibly the best play of the tournament. Maybe the best pass of all time. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/USA?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">#USA<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/teamcap?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">#teamcap<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Matthews?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">#Matthews<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/6WNWm9ahAb\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/6WNWm9ahAb<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Anant (@AnantAndAWhale) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AnantAndAWhale\/status\/2024973531067355445?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">February 20, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"65\">It is just unfathomable to think of someone being able to do this at that speed. And it wasn&#8217;t even just for the sake of making something look very cool &#8212; Boldy was able to pass it right back to Matthews and the Leafs captain made a very clean entry into the offensive zone with acres of space in front of him.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"68\">The pass was a wildly fancy play to bat that puck, making it look like it was second nature to just fling around your stick with just one hand and bump it up to a teammate, but also a productive one that lead to the United States having a chance to score.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6b\">Maybe, finally, if enough people are able to see this viral highlight of someone needing to record their screen from their phone and post it on Twitter, Matthews can stop receiving a whole lot of discreditation thrown his way. For some reason, he&#8217;s not being thought of as one of the United States&#8217; top players and potentially the best forward among the crop. Instead, they&#8217;d rather point fingers at players like Brady Tkachuk as the supposed better player.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6e\">But enough about focusing on the fans who just want to be negative all the time, or just hate a player because they play for the Toronto Maple Leafs &#8212; Matthews just made the best play of the 2026 Winter Olympics and it was barely noticed.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While Toronto Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews is receiving some undeserved criticism for his performance at the 2026&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":491487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-491486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/491487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}