By Tony Abbott -
It's good to be Underrated in the Hockey World. NHL players can make entire careers on being Underrated. Patrice Bergeron is going to the Hall of Fame based on being a perennially Underrated guy. Sasha Barkov is building his own Underrated Hall of Fame career. If you can land that coveted Underrated status, you've got it made.
Unfortunately for Matt Boldy, he's in a spot where he's underrated, but in lowercase letters. You've got to start somewhere, of course. And at 23, Boldy has plenty of years ahead to get that valuable "U," even if he continues to produce in Kirill Kaprizov's shadow. In the meantime, leaving off the caps lock works against him in his quest to make the Olympics. Team USA has such a wealth of talent that it makes it difficult for an underrated player like Boldy to stand out enough to make the roster.
Don't worry about Boldy, though. It seems like he figured out how to get that chance to represent his country. Not content to leave Bill Guerin -- his general manager with the Minnesota Wild and the Team USA GM -- with a daily look at his game throughout the regular season, Boldy took Guerin up on his suggestion to don the red, white, and blue at the World Championships. Spoilers: The way he's playing is helping raise his stock from "underrated."
Make no mistake, this tournament matters to Boldy. Guerin's "suggestion" is doing a lot of work there. "There's some guys who are going to be a lock... but there are going to be guys that are on the bubble," Guerin explained to The Athletic's Michael Russo. "I want to see how they perform."
And if that didn't perk up the ears of a bubble player like Boldy, Guerin's later comments surely did. "I want to see commitment," he said, "and if a trip to the Caribbean is more important than the World Championships, then you're not really committed."
Those comments are directed at Team USA hopefuls at large and not Boldy, who has been very willing to play for Team USA. In 2021-22, following his final season at Boston College, he represented his country at the World Championships. He did the same at the 2021 World Junior Championships. Boldy also knows the sting of being passed over. He was left off the WJC roster in 2020 following a difficult half-season in the NCAA.
That might be why Boldy has this crucial thing figured out: Being willing to go isn't enough. Performing well might not even be enough. For a bubble player like Boldy, you have to go Sicko Mode. Cue the "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" theme.
Despite many top players missing Worlds due to the playoffs, Boldy is still on a Team USA loaded with talented forwards like Johnny Gaudreau, Brady Tkachuk, Cole Caufield, and Trevor Zegras. Still, it's Boldy that's stirring the drink. He's leading not just America but the entire tournament with 14 points. Boldy's six goals are also tied for third, alongside Switzerland's Kevin Fiala, and behind only Canada's Dylan Cozens and teammate Tkachuk.
That's all impressive, but the sneaky stat that puts an exclamation point on how dominant Boldy has been is that he leads the tournament in assists (eight, tied with Gaudreau and Roman Josi) AND shots on goal (37). Only Tkachuk (33) and Joel Eriksson Ek (31) have broken the 30-shot mark. Boldy has almost as many shots as Cozens and John Tavares -- the top-two shot leaders on perennial powerhouse Canada -- combined (44).
When you shoot more than five times per night, where do you even find time to pass the puck, let alone enough to average over an assist per game? But that's exactly the kind of dual-threat Boldy's been for the tournament. We're seeing the Kaprizov-esque dominance fans are hoping Boldy can grow into. No matter how loaded the field, that kind of player will have a spot on an Olympic Roster.
If we want to not enjoy things, we can nit-pick over a good chunk of Boldy's (and Team USA's top players) numbers coming from a 10-1 drubbing of 12th-place (of 16) Kazhakstan. Boldy racked up two goals, six points, and 10 shots in the game as the Americans' power play ran wild for 60 minutes. What's the point of that, though? For one, Boldy should be doing 360 dunks from half-court against Kazhakstan. One person's stat-padding is another's "playing the full 60 minutes."
Separate the Kazakhstan game from the rest of the tournament, though, and we still see a Boldy that's one of the best players in this tournament. We'd still be talking about a player with four goals, eight points, and 27 shots in the tournament. One whose team held an 11-4 advantage whenever Boldy was on the ice (9-2 at 5-on-5). It's hard to pick nits when Boldy's been this dominant and subjecting a single venue to hearing "The Boys Are Back In Town" more frequently than has been done since 2015.
The playoffs start on Thursday, with the US playing Czechia, and that will be the final test for Boldy in this early Olympic audition. What better case can you make to a GM that you can win than winning a tournament? Win or lose, though, it's difficult to see Boldy shrinking from the limelight in the knockout stages. He's engaged, he's insanely productive, and he's bought in all the way. That kind of performance could very well make him Underrated or even better. Boldy's made it so, so easy to imagine him leading Team USA -- and the Wild -- to some glorious wins in the future.
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