Matthews waits for leap year
Leafs star is a talented player, no doubt, but surge in production hasn’t materialized
Auston Matthews was asked to evaluate his season, incomplete as it is. Someone said, the numbers were still pretty good. He sighed.
“Yeah, I mean they’re fine,” the Toronto Maple Leafs centre said. “I don’t know what you really want me to say to that. I just try to go out and play hockey, do what I do, and help this team score and play a 200-foot game and just do my thing, and obviously, help the team win games.”
He’s right: The numbers are fine. He missed 14 games with a left shoulder injury, but has 30 goals and 30 assists in 53 games. It’s just that, while Matthews hasn’t fallen backward, he hasn’t leapt ahead.
The numbers bear that out. According to the website Natural Stat Trick, Matthews produced 1.82 goals per 60 minutes last season, and 3.36 points; this year he is at 1.85 and 3.71, respectively. He is scoring fewer 5-on-5 goals, but producing more 5-on-5 assists, so his points there are identical. He’s still really good.
But he came into the season wanting to produce more and hasn’t, quite. Matthews is third in goals per 60 overall, behind only Alexander Ovechkin and Nashville’s Viktor Arvidsson; he was second last season. He is 10th in points per 60, and last year was 11th. Other than the variations at 5-on-5, he’s hovering at the same altitude.
It’s a great place to plateau; the view’s fantastic. But it’s been a plateau. Mitch Marner is scoring slightly more points than Matthews per minute played, and jumps off the page when you watch the games; John Tavares is scoring more goals at 5-on-5 than Matthews, the master of that art. When you ask Matthews about the improvements he had worked toward, it sounds like it hasn’t been what he was expecting.
“Yeah, I mean the injury sets you back a bit,” he said. “Probably about a month or two after, I felt like I got my legs back and skating was a lot better, just more comfortable out there. I think as the season goes on, obviously it gets harder and harder and things tighten up, and it’s our job to make adjustments as players.”
He also talked about his touch not coming right back after the injury, though the numbers don’t totally reflect that: He had 16 points in his first seven games, went scoreless in four, and got crunched by Jacob Trouba. He had 11 points in his first six games back after the injury, and has 33 points in the 37 games since then. Anecdotally, it feels like he has fewer visibly dominant shifts this season.
Toronto’s share of goals-for with him on the ice at 5-on-5 has dropped from an absurd 67 per cent last year to 50 per cent, even.
He’s been without William Nylander on his wing, of course, due to the forward’s holdout and deployment. Nylander was on the third line with Patrick Marleau and Nazem Kadri in practice Friday, as Kadri returns against Edmonton Saturday night after missing eight games with a concussion. Matthews has seen less Zach Hyman but more Patrick Marleau, as Marleau slows.
Again, the 21-year-old Mat- thews is great; he just hasn’t accelerated the way the team’s de facto first-line stars have, and they get most of the toughest competition. It’s fine. Earlier this week linemate Kasperi Kapanen said of the MatthewsKapanen-Andreas Johnsson group, “I think these past couple games we’ve been mediocre ... it’s just us not being 100 per cent, but thank god we still have games left before playoffs, and I guess we’ve just got to get going.”
“They’re proud guys, they want to be good, they think they’re good, we think they’re good, and we think it’s important they’re good,” Leafs coach Mike Babcock said. “Consistency in the National Hockey League is the toughest thing to have, but we need those guys to be effective. But when they take care of the puck, and especially when Auston’s really skating — when he’s skating — he’s a load. So that’s important that that happens.”
“Yeah, I mean, it’s a matter of us,” Matthews said. “We’re the ones out there, so we’ve got to do a better job and the (defencemen) that are out there as well, making sure you get pucks to the net, have good structure, you know, use some creativity, not just do the same stuff over and over again.
“But it’s really important not to be one and done, because at the end of the season that’s where the game’s at, it’s down low, below the dots, and the neutral zone’s pretty jammed up. So it would be a good test for us tomorrow night to get back on track. I thought we did a better job against Vancouver ... kind of generating more chances off the cycle, but we can always be better.”
That’s the thing: You get the sense that he can. With Kapanen and Matthews on the ice the Leafs have scored 56 per cent of goals at 5-on-5; Matthews and Johnsson clock in, in more limited time, at 64 per cent. As Kapanen says, “I think once we’re going, it doesn’t matter what team we’re playing against, I think we can play against anybody.”
Well, feel free. The playoffs are coming, and Boston awaits, and Matthews had one goal and two points in that sevengame playoff loss to the Bruins last season. He expected better. He probably still does.