Matthew Strome plays professional hockey just like his two older brothers, Dylan and Ryan, but without the same pedigree.
Ryan, a 31-year-old pivot for the Anaheim Ducks, has played 12 seasons in the NHL and could reach a major milestone in the future: 1,000 career games. Named to the AHL’s All-Rookie team in 2014, Ryan scored 106 points (33g, 73a) with the Niagara IceDogs and finished third in OHL scoring (2010-11 season) before being drafted by the New York Islanders fifth overall in the 2011 NHL Draft.
Dylan, four years younger than Ryan, is currently the leading point-scorer for the Washington Capitals and has centered two future Hockey Hall of Famers, Alex Ovechkin and Patrick Kane, during his nine-year career in the NHL. Once the Arizona Coyotes’ third overall pick in the 2015 NHL Draft, Dylan spent his junior career as a teammate of Connor McDavid with the Erie Otters, lighting up the scoresheet and getting buzz as one of the top prospects in all of hockey. He captained Team Canada at the 2014 World Junior Championship.
Despite being overshadowed by both of his NHL brothers, Matt, a fourth-round selection of the Philadelphia Flyers in the 2017 NHL Draft, has found a niche in pro hockey, but at a lower level. He’s an effective checking-line forward on the American Hockey League’s Hershey Bears. Never scoring more than seven goals in a single season, the 25-year-old, six-foot-four winger thrives on hard work and creating havoc.
A year after not dressing in a single game during the Bears’ 2023 championship run, Matt cemented himself onto Hershey’s fourth line in the 2024 postseason, skating primarily with Henrik Rybinski and Bogdan Trineyev. Later in June, he did something neither of his brothers have accomplished before: score a championship-winning goal in overtime.
All those days in his childhood, competing and shooting around with his brothers, prepared Matt for that pivotal second, where time stood still and instinct took over. A fortuitous bounce and a perfectly placed shot delivered a life-changing moment, writing another Strome’s name into the history books and proving, without a doubt, he belongs, too.
“Matt Strome has the clutch gene for life now”
In the Washington Capitals organization, there was no bigger goal in 2024 than Matt Strome’s championship winner scored on June 24.
Hershey, playing the Coachella Valley Firebirds in the Calder Cup Finals for the second consecutive year, jumped out to a 3-2 series lead after taking two of three from the Western Conference Champions at Acrisure Arena, one of the loudest venues in the AHL.
Returning home to Giant Center for Game 6, the Bears looked to do what they couldn’t the year before, close out the Firebirds early and avoid an anxiety-inducing Game 7. In 2023, Hershey fell behind 2-0 in that championship-deciding game, needing strikes from Connor McMichael and Hendrix Lapierre to force overtime. There, alternate captain Mike Vecchione found paydirt 16:19 into the extra session, unleashing a huge roar and clinching the Bears’ twelfth championship.
A year later, in front of 11,013 ravenous Bears fans at Giant Center, Hershey and Coachella Valley battled neck-and-neck during regulation of Game 6, seeing four different lead changes. The Bears got a hat trick from Pierrick Dubé and a goal from Hendrix Lapierre, while the Firebirds got tallies from Ryan Winterton (2), Marian Studenic, and Cale Fleury.
One minute and six seconds into overtime, after Ethen Frank hustled to negate an icing, the fourth line, consisting of Strome, Trineyev, and Riley Sutter, raced onto the ice for a shift change. Sutter and Trineyev’s pressure along the sideboards forced a turnover, jostling the puck free to Strome. The youngest Strome collected the loose biscuit and glided to the space between the two circles. He ripped a shot before an out-stretched Connor Carrick could get his stick on the puck, beating goaltender Chris Driedger and clinching Hershey’s 13th Calder Cup.
“I think it hit Sutter’s skate and then bounced out into the slot,” Strome said on the ice during the Bears’ championship celebration. “As soon as it hit my tape, I kinda blacked out, but every day in practice before the game, we do a drill where we come off the wall and shoot it. I knew I was going low glove as soon as I saw it, and the rest is history.
“This is just crazy,” he added with a huge, disbelieving smile. “To do it on home ice this year and actually play in a couple games this year and be a big part of it, it’s unbelievable. I feel so many emotions.”
Unlike Vecchione the year before, whose ROAR celebration came to define the team, Strome’s championship tally felt less storybook and more random — a cosmic reward for his own personal dedication to the team and the sport.
“The fourth line does so much for us,” Vecchione said. “I don’t even consider them our fourth line. They go out there and play against the best on other teams, they’re taking D-zone draws, they’re killing penalties, and then they go out there and score the game-winner for us in overtime. I’m so proud of those guys – Bogey, Suttsy, Stromer. They absolutely earned that.”
“Matt Strome has the clutch gene for life now,” Vecchione added. “If you score an overtime winner to win the Calder Cup, that’s it. You’re the guy.”
“My brothers have been my biggest fans through the ups and downs”
Matt Strome has an enormous sense of family. That was evident when he spoke about his older brother Dylan attending his playoff game on May 4 — a 5-1 Game 2 victory over the Lehigh Valley Phantoms in the Atlantic Division Semifinals. Matt said it was the first time Dylan had been able to watch him play live in nine years, taking them both back to their junior days.
“The support I have from my whole family really drives me,” Matt said that night. “It was just great to see him.”
The moment was equally as meaningful for Dylan, who attended the game a week after the Capitals were swept out of the first round of the playoffs by the New York Rangers.
“That (night) was awesome,” Dylan said to RMNB. “I haven’t seen him play in a long time. He’s someone that I’ve always followed obviously. We watched each other play a ton of times. We played together a little bit when we were younger. I feel like he’s worked really hard to get to where he’s at. He’s had nothing handed to him.”
Dylan took his support to the next level when Matt scored the Calder Cup-winning goal in late June. The typically infrequent social media poster retweeted his brother’s goal and posted several tweets himself on X. He did the same on his Instagram account.
MATT STROME OTGWG @TheHersheyBears what a legend. So well deserved!!!!!!!!
— Dylan Strome (@stromer19) June 25, 2024
Matty Bear https://t.co/cw1NDUL2iC
— Dylan Strome (@stromer19) June 25, 2024
Matt’s oldest brother Ryan also posted his own excited message and retweeted the goal.
OT HERO!!!! LFG MATTY CALDER CUP CHAMPS @Mstrome16 @TheHersheyBears @theahl
— Ryan Strome (@strome18) June 25, 2024
Matt later learned that his entire family was watching Game 6 of the Calder Cup Finals together.
“Both my brothers, my parents, my grandparents, aunts and uncles, all my family,” Matt said. “It’s been a tough road making a name for myself. So when that happened, they weren’t here unfortunately, but they had a video of them jumping around my brother’s basement after. So, I honestly cried after seeing that. It was so awesome to see the support from them back home and yeah, it’s just unbelievable to have them in my corner. My brothers have been my biggest fans through the ups and downs, through being in the ECHL or being scratched. They always believed in me.”
“He’s worked really hard to get to where he is,” Dylan added. “It was tough for him not playing in the playoffs before. He didn’t play one game in the playoffs. He really wanted to be out there with the guys this year, or last year. He was happy to get that opportunity to score that goal. He had a good playoffs. He had like five or six points and really did a good job of shutting down the other team’s top lines. He was really proud of that role. It was the right place, right time for the overtime winner. It was a pretty cool goal to watch.”
The Bears’ championship goal in 2024 can actually be traced back to the summer of 2022 when the Chicago Blackhawks surprisingly opted to let Dylan walk as a free agent. The Capitals scooped the centerman up on a one-year, $3.5 million deal. Matt was an unrestricted free agent the same summer after his entry-level contract with the Philadelphia Flyers expired. He opted to ink an AHL deal with the Bears nearly two months later, joining Dylan in the same organization.
“When this opportunity kind of came up two years ago, and we got to skate on the same training camp ice together, I think that was the first time we actually played in a real practice, not just a summer practice, since we were four and six years old,” Matt said.
Over the offseason, Matt signed a two-year contract extension with Hershey and stayed at Dylan’s home near DC for two weeks during Capitals Training Camp.
“It’s [cool] every time you’re out there with your brother,” Matt said. “Being with my nieces and his wife, they’re just so welcoming and they made me feel at home.”
“He’s great with the kids,” Dylan said. “It’s always a pleasure when he’s at our house. He always knows he’s always very, very welcome down at our house. I’m very fortunate that he signed in Hershey and that I’m here.”
Matt continued to feel the highs of his accomplishment, getting kudos from one of the greatest players of all time. “I had Ovechkin come up to me and say, ‘Congrats,'” Matt said. “I was like, ‘Wow, that’s really cool.'”
“Everybody wants to be the fan favorite”
On the Giant Center concourse, Matt’s jersey is now featured in a Calder Cup championship display celebrating the 2024 team. He has felt fans’ enthusiasm since returning to the team this season, giving him a newfound appreciation of the fame his brothers are more accustomed to.
“Definitely a lot more people kind of know who I am around here now,” Matt said. “We did an autograph signing the other day and just all the support from all the fans was so cool. And yeah, I guess it was a pretty big change from kind of being that fourth-line guy, just playing my role, being on the penalty kill, to being the Game 6 hero. Yeah, my life’s definitely changed a lot since that’s happened.”
Strome is now one of three players in the Capitals’ organization who have scored championship-winning tallies, joining Lars Eller and Vecchione.
“Especially within Hershey, everybody kind of knows who you are in town,” Matt said. “So it’s funny if you’re going out for lunch or something after practice and they’re like, ‘There’s Matt Strome, there’s Matt Strome.’ It’s just a cool feeling that every kid wants, that’s playing hockey. Everybody wants to be the fan favorite.”
He added, “Now, I got to top it this year and see what I can do.”
Additional reporting by Katie Adler.
