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“I don’t think we’re both focusing on each other,” Matthews said. “I’m sure we both know when each other’s out there and stuff like that, but I think both of us just want to play well and help our team win. We both want a gold medal.”

The natural inclination is to use Monday’s game — and the tournament as a whole — as a head-to-head comparison heading into the draft. But it’s not really fair.

Laine is part of a deep Finnish team, playing on a line with Aleksander Barkov and Jussi Jokinen. Matthews, meanwhile has been centring a line with Jordan Schroeder and Patrick Maroon on a younger and less experienced U.S. team.

And its importantly not to base long-lasting decisions on the results of a 2½-week tournament.

“It’s a whole season or seasons — not just a tournament,” Lamoriello said. “You see as much as you possibly can, find out as much information as you possibly can, but it’s all encompassing. You never put it on one game in this type of situation.

“This is just an opportunity to see them for the last time.”

That’s not to say this tournament is meaningless either. Laine, who tied Matthews with a tournament-leading seven goals in seven games at the world juniors and then was named playoff MVP after winning a Finnish league championship, continues to show that he is every bit as dangerous a sniper as his idol, Alex Ovechkin, was at this age.

At the very least, the gap between he and Matthews continues to shrink. If it were a team other than Toronto picking first, which did not have such a void at centre, maybe Laine would have overtaken Matthews by now. Maybe that is already happening.

“I don’t think anybody has their mind’s made up yet,” Kekalainen said. “I can’t speak for the other teams, but I know that we have a lot of homework to do.”

In other words, forget Winnipeg. Maybe Laine should start talking about Toronto.