It’s been a few days since New York Islanders forward Mathew Barzal and Team Canada came up short of the gold medal at the IIHF World Championships. Despite the 4-3 defeat at the hands of Finland, Barzal notched six points over the three elimination games, including a three-assist performance in the gold medal game.

I wrote an article about Barzal’s performance post the preliminary round games, which is when the 25-year-old truly found his game and I saw similar comments along the lines of “This is what happens when Barzal is given talent around him.”

While you need players around you that can bury the puck, Mat Barzal’s success at the tournament was less about who he played with and more about him.

Through the majority of the preliminary, where Barzal only notched two assists over six games, he skated alongside a young stud from the Ottawa Senators in four-year NHLer Drake Batherson, and rookie Kent Johnson, who played a mere nine games in the NHL in 2021-22.

There was not much success for Barzal, who seemed of his game and was struggling to create chances like we have become accustomed to. Chances started to accumulate just before elimination games when Montreal Canadiens forward Josh Anderson replaced Drake Batherson on that line.

There seemed to be a good connection with Anderson, a big body forward who scored 19 goals this past season in 69 games with Montreal.

But out of the six points over the final three games, three came on the man advantage while one came with the net empty. So only two points over the final three games came at five-on-five, which is not bad, but is much different than thinking his point production skyrocketed with his even-strength linemates.

Mat Barzal found himself on the top power-play unit for Team Canada which consisted of Batherson, Pierre-Luc Dubois, Damon Steverson, and Dylan Cozens. Canada’s power play finished the tournament third-best, with a 35.48% success rate.

And yes, those players are very talented and did bury the chances that Barzal created.