Colorado Avalanche Prospect Profile: Matthew Stienburg

The Colorado Avalanche chose Matthew Stienburg with their first pick of the third round. Find out about this young forward.

The Colorado Avalanche had the Ottawa Senators’ third-round pick of 2019, and they used it to select forward Matthew Stienburg at #63 overall. Stienberg attended Colorado’s prospect development camp this summer.

During that time, he spoke with Avs PR about his life. Let’s start with something that’s been a defining experience for the 18-year-old — his bout with osteomyelitis, a serious bone infection.

In 2015, Stienburg was a 15-year-old getting ready to celebrate the Holidays with his family when he came down with what he thought was a serious case of the flu. Unfortunately, pain in his shoulders and hip turned out to be the bone infection. He required two surgeries to correct the issue — something he had to fight for over seven months.

During his interview with Samantha Wexler for the Avs website, Stienburg said of the experience:

“I was out for most of the year, I think I played 10-15 games. The main thing for me was staying around the locker room, going to the rink as much as I can. Having a routine was the main thing, I didn’t want to just sit at home and lay in bed too much. Getting out and being with the guys in the locker room was the main thing that helped me.”

Unfortunately, the illness set him back at a key moment in his development. He was limited to 16 games in 2015-16. That was the year he would have been eligible to be drafted by the Canadian Hockey League, but his illness prevented that.

Here’s the Youtube video about that experience Matthew underwent:

Apparently a little-know side effect of Osteomyelitis is a sort of Benjamin Button effect because I swear the tyke looks eight in this video.

Anyway, Stienburg went back to play another year of midget hockey. He then went on to play two years at the prep school St. Andrew’s College. In fact, his final year he wore the C as captain.

Matthew appreciates what his time with St. Andrew’s taught him. As he points out, he’s a late birthday — October 7, to be exact. He actually graduated then went back to school for another year. He said of that experience:

“I’m back a year in school from the guys that are my age. Having graduated and then going back to school this year–I had the choice between that and juniors–personally for me going back just seemed like the best option for a lot of reasons. The ice time, the facilities we have, the option we have to develop; I thought it was the best fit for me. That was the main reason I was back at St. Andrew’s this year.”

Matthew Stienburg likes the school route. He’s committed to playing for Cornell University next season. He sees playing NCAA hockey as a chance for him to develop his game more.

Stienburg has grown into his body some more. I don’t know how undersized — his word — he was in the video above, but he’s a respectable 6-foot-1, 185 pounds now. He should expect to fill out even more.

Stienburg, like Nathan MacKinnon (and Ryan Graves and Shane Bowers) hails from Nova Scotia — Halifax, specifically. Indeed, he was the highest drafted Nova Scotian in 2019. I still maintain that was an accident, but we’re going to let that rest.

Well, a Canadian comedy called Mr. D is filmed in Halifax. MacKinnon actually starred in the show. Well, so did our young Matthew. Here’s his experience:

“‘Mr. D’ is what I was on. It was shot in Halifax at my old high school. My uncle is the producer of it, so I kind of had a bit of an in there. He got me on it. I told him one day that I wanted to go and just do some background stuff and then they found a speaking role for me. That was obviously pretty exciting. It was something that I wasn’t expecting. Season 8 just came out and I was on it, had a couple lines. In season 7 I was just floating around in the background.”

I don’t think Stienburg has an IMDb page just yet, like MacKinnon does, but give him time.

Our little accidental third rounder, well, he seems like a sweet kid. Check out Stienburg cozying up with Shane Bowers:

You never know how a kid might grow. Maybe he’ll get some good development with the Cornell program and be ready on two or three years to transition into an AHL player. I’m sure the Colorado Avalanche will be watching.