Mathew Barzal grew up in British Columbia – in fact, he has been staying with his parents in Coquitlam, just east of Vancouver, during the NHL’s current hiatus – and he spent his junior career playing in Seattle with the WHL’s Thunderbirds.

That’s why the New York Islanders forward is convinced the rivalry between the Vancouver Canucks and the yet-to-be-named Seattle franchise that’ll join the league in 2021 is poised to be a special one.

“I think it’s going to be great,” Barzal said Tuesday during an on appearance Hockey Central. “You’re going to have a ton of people going down, a ton of people going up to watch the games and I think it’s going to be fun.

“Seattle fans are pretty committed people. We had fans for our junior team going over to Saskatchewan, Alberta just to watch our junior team play so I’m sure when the NHL team gets there it’ll be even crazier then.”

Hockey Central Where did Mathew Barzal get his burst of speed? April 21 2020 Your browser does not support the audio element.



Share Download

Barzal spent four seasons with the Thunderbirds. His success there resulted in him getting selected 16th overall by the Islanders in the 2015 draft and he experienced first-hand the type of hockey city Seattle can be.

“Honestly, I loved it there,” Barzal said. “We played about half an hour out of downtown and we had a packed rink, 6,000 pretty much every game and it wasn’t even just that though. You ask anyone, whether you were playing in Portland, Everett or Seattle, the fans were super loud, loved the fights, loved the hits. Didn’t really maybe grip the game of hockey too too well, because I don’t think they’d watched enough of it — or watched enough high-end hockey yet — but they definitely loved the energy of the game and the physicality for sure.”

The Seattle NHL franchise still doesn’t have a name or logo, but the expansion draft is slated to take place in 2021 with the team debuting in the league during the 2021-22 season.