Toronto Maple Leafs: Auston Matthews, Mitchell Marner Rank
Two Toronto Maple Leafs players are featured in TSN’s top 50 NHL players list.
Auston Matthews and Mitchell Marner are the lone Toronto Maple Leafs representatives on the list, unfortunately, William Nylander doesn’t make an appearance.
It’s strange not seeing Nylander’s name on the list because of the fantastic rookie year he put up in the 2016-17 season.
Through 81 games played, he produced 22 goals and 61 points, 26 of those points were on the powerplay, nine being goals.
That’s the same point total as Marner, but the real difference comes down to games played, Marner playing in four fewer contests, but still managing similar statistics across the board.
That may have been the difference maker in deciding which of the two were to crack the list and if I’m not mistaken, Willie did manage to receive some votes.
Let’s take a closer look at the list.
The List
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Obviously, we’re going to be referencing the article on the list written by Frank Seravalli of TSN, so check it out via this link.
Also, I had the pleasure to meet Frank back in June at the TSN studio and I’m happy to report that he’s a quality guy.
Anyways, we’ll start with Marner who ranks at the very top of the list, 50th overall, just barely squeezing in and from there, we’ll make our way down to Matthews.
According to Seravalli, Marner slipped in and edged out Taylor Hall for the final spot.
Between Marner and Matthews, they represent a pretty marginal scoring tandem from last season with 59 goals, falling behind the very best on the list, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin’s total of 77.
I’m assuming that statistic is only including players on the list, but it doesn’t really specify 100%.
Crosby, for the first time ever on this list, doesn’t rank 1st overall, falling only to Connor McDavid.
Malkin ranks 6th overall.
I wish we could talk a little more about that Crosby – McDavid conundrum, but it’s not Leafs related, so I’ll move on.
Continued
Alright, let’s get to Matthews who ranks 10th overall, the highest jump this year on the list coming from off the board.
It’s hard to argue against the players that are listed nine through one because they’re all pretty deserving of their respective spots.
The only change in the top 10 that I would make is swapping Victor Hedman (9th) with Matthews (10th).
By this time next year, I’m hoping that Matthews will work his way into the top five, but we’ll have to wait and see for that one.
Other than that, I can’t argue with a whole lot more.
I guess the whole Nylander thing, but we’ll let TSN have this one and we’ll see him on the list for the 2018-19 season.
Right?