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Toronto Maple Leafs: At Worst, Auston Matthews Is the 3rd Best Player in the NHL

By James Tanner

TORONTO, ON - APRIL 17: Auston Matthews #34 of the Toronto Maple Leafs celebrates his 1st of two goals against the Boston Bruins in Game Four of the Eastern Conference First Round during the 2019 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs at Scotiabank Arena on April 17, 2019 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Bruins defeated the Maple Leafs 6-4. (Photo by Claus Andersen/Getty Images)
TORONTO, ON - APRIL 17: Auston Matthews #34 of the Toronto Maple Leafs celebrates his 1st of two goals against the Boston Bruins in Game Four of the Eastern Conference First Round during the 2019 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs at Scotiabank Arena on April 17, 2019 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Bruins defeated the Maple Leafs 6-4. (Photo by Claus Andersen/Getty Images) /
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The Toronto Maple Leafs drafted Auston Matthews first overall three seasons ago.

It was thought at the time, and has since been confirmed, that Matthews is the best player the Toronto Maple Leafs have ever drafted.

There are high odds that when all is said and done, he’ll pass Mats Sundin as the best player in franchise history.

Matthews has missed significant parts of the last two seasons, and since Mitch Marner scored 94 points last year, some people – including Marner’s agent  –  seem to think that Marner might be better.

But that is a scientific impossibility.

Allow me to explain:

Auston Matthews and the Toronto Maple Leafs

Because Matthew’s missed 34 games over the past two seasons (which is roughly one out of every five games, or 20%) people seem to have forgotten how amazing he actually is.

In both years, he has scored at a 45 goal pace (which doesn’t account for the fact that his coach didn’t play him enough, and in one of those years wasn’t on the top PP unit).

With better usage, more minutes, and full health I think it’s safe to say we’d be talking about a back-to-back 50 goal scorer right now.

In the last two years, Auston Matthews leads the NHL with 1.51 goals per 60 minutes of 5v5 ice-time.  Matthews is 3rd, behind only Kucherov and McDavid in points per 60.(naturalstattrick.com).

Matthews is also 3rd in the NHL over the last two years in Wins Above Replacement per 60 Minutes of Ice Time (War), and Goals Above Replacement (GAR) (Corsica.hockey).  These are measures that attempt to measure a player’s entire contribution to the game, and they pretty much both agree that Auston Matthews is the third best player in the NHL.

Unfortunately for Matthews totals, he has not seen the ice time that other players of his caliber can expect.  Alexander Barkov leads the NHL over the past two seasons with 22 minutes per game (all situations).

Along with Barkov, McDavid and Couturier make up three of the four centres who play over 22 minutes per night.  MacKinnon, Crosby and O’Reilly are at 21.  Only one other player in the NHL belongs in this group, and he plays just over 18 minutes per night, for some reason.

Matthews playing 18 minutes per night means that at the bare minimum, Babcock is wasting three minutes per game where he could have the NHL’s best goal scorer on the ice, but does not.

What we can see here is that a properly utilized Matthews should be a cinch for 50 goals, and if he got some luck and improves as expected (he still hasn’t peaked) he should be able to score 60 or more.

There’s really no limit.

In conclusion, MItch Marner is a damn good player, but the only two players in the you can conceivably consider better than Auston Matthews are Nikita Kucherov and Connor McDavid – and Matthews is younger than both of them.

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