Toronto Maple Leafs Need More Out of Auston Matthews

The Toronto Maple Leafs have a great team, including the best centre depth in the NHL.

But, for the Toronto Maple Leafs to reach their full potential and win a Stanley Cup, they are going to need more out of Auston Matthews.

Now, don’t get me wrong: Auston Matthews is awesome.

He is already the single most talented player in the history of the Toronto Maple Leafs, and he’s also probably the best goal scorer in the NHL, by evidence of his leading the league in 5v5 goals per minute since he entered the league.

It’s quite possible that Matthews is the second best player in the NHL.

The Leafs just need him to start playing like it.

Auston Matthews

Taking nothing away from Matthews, who is awesome, all I am saying here is that for the Leafs to reach their potential, Matthews has to reach his.

So far this season, with Matthews on the ice, the Leafs are getting 51% of the shot-attempts, 48% of the shots, 50% of the goals, and 51% of the scoring chances.

It’s good, but it needs to be better.

The Leafs should do more than just break even when they’ve not only got one of the best players in the NHL, but when, additionally, they can also keep him away from other team’s top lines because of the presence of John Tavares.

Part of Matthews so-so numbers are due to line-mates.  Kasperi Kapanen is a good player, but he probably isn’t a first line player.  Matthews should skate with Nylander, or Marner.  It makes sense to have your best player playing with one of your two best wingers, and so far this year that hasn’t happened.

Andreas Johnsson has been on Matthews left recently, and as the team’s top left winger, he’s a good choice.  Unfortunately, Matthews has played far more minutes with Patrick Marleau, and the results were not pretty.  Fixing that (which Babcock has) should lead to more Matthews production eventually.

Basically, Matthews has been really good – he has 30 goals and 60 points in 53 games.  Those are strong numbers, but for the Leafs to truly excel, Matthews has to be more than just really good.

There is nothing wrong with scoring at a 46 goal pace, except that Matthews could score 60 +.

There’s nothing wrong with a 92 point pace, but Matthews could score 120.

Obviously line-mates and ice time make a difference (Matthews isn’t playing what a lot of centres play, but at the same time, he’s scoring less per minute than Tavares and Marner, and he shouldn’t be).

Matthews hasn’t scored a goal in five games. He hasn’t scored two in one game in 11 games.

He started the season with four multi-goal games in five, but he’s got just four mult-point games the rest of the year so far.

This isn’t meant to knock Matthews – he’s been a great player so far.  All I’m saying is that he clearly has another level and we haven’t seen it for much of this season.  If the Toronto Maple Leafs are to go all the way, he’ll need to find it.