BUFFALO — Wearing a pristine white Buffalo Bisons jersey with his trademark No. 34 on the back, Auston Matthews stepped into the batting cage and dug in, all the while having just one thing on his mind.
It was time to go deep.
With big league-like efficiency, he waggled the bat — “it was my go-to back in the day,” he said — and prepared for the first pitch to come in.
On this sun-splashed Wednesday afternoon, a number of the NHL’s top prospects gathered to take some batting practice at Buffalo’s Coca-Cola Field, the home of the Bisons, the triple-A affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays.