This is my favorite clip of the day.

It’s Hall of Fame hockey writer Jim Matheson getting into it with Edmonton’s Leon Draisaitl:

I’ll transcribe the good part, because it’s even better when you read it verbatim:

Draisaitl: “We have to get better at everything.” 

Matheson: “Would you like to expand on that?”

Draisaitl: “Nope. You can do that. You know everything.”

Matheson: “Why are you so pissy, Leon?”

Draisaitl: “Hmm?”

Matheson: “Why are you so pissy?”

Draisaitl: “I’m not. I’m just answering your question.”

Matheson: “Yeah, you are, whenever I ask you a question.”

Draisaitl: “I gave you an answer.”

Matheson: “Not a very good one.”

Draisaitl: <shrugs>

I went back and watched the full exchange on the Oilers’ Twitter account, and this is one portion from a string of three straight Matheson questions. Draisaitl answered the first one, but just didn’t seem very interested in talking about anything at all.

This question in particular is fine, but obviously there’s some history here, which we can determine from the “you know everything” line. Draisaitl is up there with one of those “this fucking guy” looks on his face, and we’ve seen the Flyers make the same face plenty of times before.

I think Matheson crosses a line when he says “yeah you are” as a follow-up response, and then bemoans not getting the answer he wanted. It reeks a little bit of entitlement and suggests pre-writing of a story, where you then try to shoe-horn the quotes into it. That’s kind of an old school way to work, though these types of exchanges happen all the time, but not typically in front of a camera. Usually the writer and player just talk off to the side and settle it. Stuff like this is more common than you might realize.

Matheson is an old school guy who is in the Hockey Hall of Fame. He’s started back in the 70s, so he’s been around Oiler hockey for decades now.