It is late July. Auston Matthews was drafted by the Toronto Maple Leafs a little over a month ago; he also finally signed with the Leafs just under a week ago. Hooray!

... Now we still have to wait well over a month to see him in a Leafs jersey proper. Development camp is one thing, training camp will be a whole other thing, pre-season a thing, actual NHL games we still have to wait another, like, 11 weeks. Not hooray. This is very difficult.

But to help pass the time before we meet Matthews on the ice for real, we can meet him off the ice, via Craig Custance and ESPN.

My favourites from the bunch? He starts off strong with wanting bigger nets in the NHL; this kid is gonna be a goal scorer, all right. His fear of sharks and snakes is adorable, wanting to be a musician or artist if not an athlete is awesome, and Muhammad Ali is such a good answer to the "any person you could ever have dinner with" question.

The only problem here? There's no In-N-Out Burger in Toronto. Someone's going to have to fix that...