Cowan: Canadiens 'raised the bar' with playoff run, Mike Matheson says
Mike Matheson's season isn't over yet.
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The Canadiens defenceman accepted an invitation to play for Team Canada at the IIHF World Championship, which begins Friday. Canada's first game in Sweden will be Saturday against Slovenia.
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'I want to continue to play important games for next year,' Matheson said last Friday, when the Canadiens met with the media for the last time this season. 'Just because we made the playoffs this year, the league isn't going to let us make them next year.'
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During his 10 seasons in the NHL with the Florida Panthers, Pittsburgh Penguins and Canadiens, Matheson has made the playoffs five times and never advanced past the first round. He realizes how hard it is just to get to the post-season and believes his young Canadiens teammates learned that this season.
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'There's one team I feel like that can walk away from this season feeling good about everything they accomplish, and that's the team that wins (the Stanley Cup),' Matheson said. 'I think we accomplished a lot in our season and were able to attain some goals that we had set out for ourselves. But I think in doing that we raised the bar and realized that there's a lot more that we want to do and accomplish in the years to come.
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'The playoffs, it's a different animal,' Matheson added. 'It was the first time for a lot of guys on our team, and I think it was a great learning experience to see just how high the level of play is in the playoffs and how much growth that we need to continue to work on to get to that level.'
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ROSTER UPDATE | Mike Matheson has been added to 🇨🇦's National Men's Team for #MensWorlds.
MISE À JOUR | Mike Matheson s'ajoute à l'équipe nationale masculine du 🇨🇦 pour le #MondialMasculin. pic.twitter.com/EwwAchP8Ur
— Hockey Canada (@HockeyCanada) May 6, 2025
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Matheson played a key role in the rebuilding Canadiens making the playoffs for the first time in four years. He led the team in ice time with an average of 25:05 per game, which ranked seventh in the NHL.
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Last season, Matheson had his best offensive season with 11-51-62 totals — 28 more points than his previous best in 2022-23. The arrival of rookie defenceman Lane Hutson this season changed Matheson's role and he lost his spot on the No. 1 power-play unit. Last season, Matheson led the Canadiens in power-play ice time with an average of 3:41 per game. This season, he led the team in short-handed ice time with an average of 3:28 (ranking third in the NHL) and finished with 6-25-31 totals. The Canadiens ranked ninth in the NHL in penalty killing.
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'Last year, I showed that I can bring things offensively and I think this year I grew a lot as a defender,' said Matheson, who has one season left on his contract with a US$4.875 million salary-cap hit.
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