Expectations are high for Auston Matthews after a fantastic rookie season with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Coming into the NHL as a rookie and taking your team to the playoffs is a big deal, but doing that as a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs is even bigger.
That’s not where it stopped for Matthews, though.
He won top honors for all rookies across the board in the 2016-17 season, claiming the Calder Trophy with 40 goals and 69 points in 82 games played.
To say he met expectations would be an understatement, try shattered.
However, that’s all in the past and it’s time to focus on the future because October is well on its way.
Raise the expectation bar for Matthews because if there’s a young player in this league that can handle it, it’s him.
Now, the talk of the town is in regards to whether or not Matthews can exceed his goals, assist and point total from the previous season.
I think he can, but just for fun, let’s take a look at recent Calder winners point production in their rookie and sophomore seasons.
Just for comparison reseasons.
Past Winners
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We’ll start with the most recent winners (dating back to the 2010-11 season) and work our way down the list, excluding Matthews in the sophomore section for obvious reasons.
Why only going back that far you ask?
Because it becomes harder to analyze production that far back due to the game changing, that’s all.
First up is their rookie seasons, formatted by games played, goals, assists, and points.
- Auston Matthews: 82-40-29-69
- Artemi Panarin: 80-30-47-77
- Aaron Ekblad: 81-12-27-39
- Nathan MacKinnon: 82-24-39-63
- Jonathan Huberdeau: 48-14-17-31
- Gabriel Landeskog: 82-22-30-52
- Jeff Skinner: 82-31-32-63
And here’s their sophomore season, formatted the same way.
- Panarin: 82-31-43-74
- Ekblad: 78-15-21-36
- MacKinnon: 64-14-24-38
- Huberdeau: 69-9-19-28
- Landeskog: 36-9-8-17
- Skinner: 64-20-24-44
In the first section, you’ll notice that every player on the list played in almost every single game of the regular season.
It only appears that Panarin and Ekblad were able to hold up their point totals at least for the season after they won the Calder.
Remember that the former of the two was 25 years old in his second year.
None of the past winners on this list were able to match their rookie season performance, but I think it’s more than possible for Matthews.
Bump, Slump, Chump
Nobody expected 40 goals from Matthews last year, but I think we should now.
The easiest area of his point production game to pick up is his assist total, so even if he was held at 30-35 goals and increased his assists to 35-40, that would be good.
He’s capable of a 70 point sophomore season if he can manage to stay healthy and I’d argue that he’s the best player on the list above, just with one season under his belt.
I think it’s safe to say that he’ll see a bump in his point production, this early in his career.
My guess is that Matthews will score 38 goals and 37 assists for 75 points in the 2017-18 season.
I’m hoping he’ll prove me wrong and surpass that.