Auston Matthews Game So Good It’s Nearly Impossible to Describe

The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Hell out of the Blackhawks last night.

The Toronto Maple Leafs actually had to come from behind to win, and they had to go to overtime to do it, so the score doesn’t really indicate just how badly they DESTROYED the three-time Cup Champs.

“Expected Goals” is a stat created to account for luck.  As (hopefully) everyone knows, a “goal” is a completely random event.  The average goalie saves roughly 91-92% of all total shots, and there is no telling when a goalie will rob a player on a sure goal, or let in what should have been an easy save.  For this reason, it should be obvious that judging players on their points totals often makes for inaccurate judgements.  This is why analytics exist: to be able to judge the ‘process’ rather than the ‘results.’

People were for some reason surprised that Kadri broke out for 32 goals last year.  In the last year of Carlye,  he was close to the league lead in shots, and had a preposterously low shooting percentage.  Ergo, his “expected goals” where much higher than his actual totals.  Had he shot at his normal career shooting percentage, he would have broke out for a 30 goal season much earlier.  Just because he didn’t receive the results he should have, doesn’t mean he played any worse in the preceding seasons, or that he played better in the year his shooting percentage normalized.

The point is that the Leafs scored 15 goals over their first two games, and while four goals was good enough to win last night, they were technically “unlucky” because, based on their play, they should have scored six goals instead.

Auston Matthews

Auston Matthews scored the winning goal last night, so of course he had a good game.  But just like parody is no longer able to accurately reflect just how bad Donald Trump is,  it’s impossible to illustrate just how good Matthews was last night without using hyperbole and making it seem like I’m exaggerating.

He played almost 19 minutes, had six shots (that’s a lot) and one goal.   But here is where it gets CRAZY:  While Matthews was on the ice last night, the Toronto Maple Leafs had 19 scoring chances, while allowing 2.   The phrase “total domination” doesn’t even do justice to that level of play.

For the game, Matthews’ possession rating was 87.98%.  And relative to his team, +30%.  When talking Corsi, it’s simply a shot-attempt differential.  With Matthews on the ice, the Leafs attempted 20 shots (and nearly all were high-danger, since he had 19 scoring chances).  They allowed three shot attempts against.  Three.

If you put up anything over a 55% CF, long-term, you’re an elite player.  If  a team controls 55% of the play, they’ll be heavy favorites to win.  87%, even for a single game, is insane.

At even-strength, Matthews played 11 minutes.  Eight of which were with Duncan Keith on the ice.  7:22 of those 11 minutes featured Patrick Kane on the ice.

That is correct.  Auston Matthews went up against two of the NHL’s best players, two GUARANTEED first-ballot Hall of Famers, and he destroyed them.

Matthews just went up against the reining Western Conference Champs, the Three Time Stanley Cup Champs – no less – and crushed them on a level that I can’t even properly tell you about, without it seemingly like I’m exaggerating or blowing it out of proportion.

Can you say Hart Trophy?

Stats from naturalstattrick.com