Expectations greater than ever for Matthews

The number 70 means nothing for Auston Matthews come playoff time.

The scoring magnificence of Matthews has made for wonderful hockey theatre and conversation this season, but the number became just another figure for the record books after Wednesday night.

A number that starts at zero when the lights come on for real on Saturday night in Boston.

This is the great separation of hockey every year — from regular season to the playoffs, when play is elevated from one level to a giant extreme.

Matthews has been the most prolific regular-season goal-scorer since he entered the National Hockey League. That’s rather amazing.

Statistically, the third-best scorer of all time.

Number 1 with a bullet of a shot during the season. Just not No. 1 come playoff time.

Not even close. Matthews ranks 25th in goals per playoff game in his time with the Maple Leafs. It’s not a small sample size anymore. He has been in the post-season every year of his career and been to the second round of the playoffs just once.

He has played 50 playoff games in all, scoring just 22 playoff goals. That’s a 36-goal pace in the post-season, where numbers usually shrink to some degree. But that’s a giant drop in scoring of 33% from regular season to playoffs.

That’s not good enough for Matthews, not good enough for any superstar in need of furthering his reputation with post-season excellence. That’s not good enough for the soon-to-be-highest-paid player in the game.

This is among the many challenges that face Matthews and the Maple Leafs as they prepare for a series against the Boston Bruins. The Bruins, never mind last year’s firstround collapse, comprehend playoff hockey.

While Matthews finds himself 25th in playoff goals per game since entering the NHL, in that same time Brad Marchand ranks fourth in playoff goal scoring and his superstar teammate David Pastrnak ranks fifth.

In total playoff points accumulated since Matthews entered the league, Marchand is third overall with 90, just behind Nathan Mackinnon and Nikita Kucherov, who happen to be the top two scorers in the NHL this season.

On that impressive list, Pastrnak ranks sixth. The Leafs are almost nowhere to be found. Matthews is 39th with less than half of Marchand’s points. Mitch Marner is just ahead of him at 34th. Pastrnak’s pal, William Nylander, is 40th on the list.

The statistical scoring star on the Leafs roster is the former Bruin, Tyler Bertuzzi, But that comes from just one seven-game series. He scored five goals and five assists for Boston against the Florida Panthers last year.

The five goals in seven games puts him atop the NHL in goals per game, playoffwise. Small sample size, though.

Captain John Tavares ranks 80th in playoff points per game since joining the Leafs.

That’s not good enough. Not for Matthews. Not for Marner. Not for Nylander. Not for Tavares.

You don’t have a Stanley Cup run — not necessarily winning the Cup, just winning a few rounds — without your big-money players coming up big when it matters most.

WHO WINS THE STANLEY CUP?

Colorado wins when Mackinnon and Cale Makar becomes giants of the post-season.

Tampa Bay wins when Kucherov and Brayden Point combine for 60 points in a playoff season.

Washington won when Alex Ovechkin and Evgeny Kuznetsov combined to score 27 goals and 59 points in a playoff season.

Last year was the most Matthews and Marner have ever scored in the post-season. They ended up with a combined total of 25 points. Matthews didn’t score a goal in Round 2, which is his thing. Marner, not the goal scorer of this pair, scored one.

For the Leafs to have any kind of playoff success, it has to start with Matthews and Marner, translate to Nylander and Tavares, get the expected playoff bump from Morgan Rielly, and who knows what from your goaltenders.

This is a different year and a different kind of Leafs team. Matthews never has scored like this before, which makes his personal expectations larger than ever. The Leafs can beat the Bruins.

These aren’t the three Bruins teams they’ve lost to in the past. There is no Patrice Bergeron. There is no Zdeno Chara. Marchand turns 36 next month. Only Pastrnak, who had a slow finish to an otherwise sensational season, should be of immense concern for the Leafs.

He scored seven points against Toronto in four games during the season, all of them Boston wins. But two of those games went to overtime — and the particulars of that format change come playoff time, where there is no 3-on-3 or shootouts to consider.

The old Boston general manager, Harry Sinden, told me more than once that the hottest teams in the final 20 games of the season were the ones he feared the most come playoff time. Over the final quarter of the season, the Leafs and Bruins had virtually identical records. In the second half, same thing.

Pastrnak is the only explosive forward on the Bruins.

The Leafs have Matthews, Marner and Nylander, who have yet to combine for a special playoff run. It’s time for one. It’s overtime.

The giant numbers of the regular season mean nothing now as playoffs are about to begin.