Toronto Maple Leafs: Auston Matthews Isn’t Bad Defensively

December 10th — that’s the last time Auston Matthews put a puck into the opposing teams net for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

It’s been a bumpy ride for both Auston Matthews and the Toronto Maple Leafs this season. It got even bumpier for Matthews Saturday night against the Edmonton Oilers where he was more or less invisible.

There’s only been three times that the former first-overall pick has had as little as 14:34 of ice time (his total vs Oilers, Saturday). The last time it happened was April 7th, 2017 against the Montreal Canadiens. (Though in large part this is because the coach was hard-matching the Tavares line against MacDavid and Draisaitl).

But it’s not just against the Oilers where Matthews has had his struggles. Throughout this season, the 22-year-old has seemed to struggle in the defensive zone. Even fans have expressed how much he’s underperforming defensively.

At some points, the Toronto Maple Leafs leading scorer looks lost in the defensive zone, not being able to contribute effectively at times. According to Natural Stat Trick, Matthews has been on the ice for the most goals against as a centre on the Leafs (28), but he’s also been on the ice for the most goals as a forward (46).

But your eyes are likely fooling you. Matthews leads the team in 5v5 CF%  at 55.77%, which is one of the top marks in the entire NHL.  With Matthews on the ice, the Leafs have the puck approximately 5% more than they do without him on. Since you literally cannot be scored on if you have the puck, Matthews is — at a minimum — improving the defense by 5%.

Furthermore, even if he is occasionally out of position in the defensive zone, it’s not to the point where he’s making the Leafs 5% worse consistently.  Therefore, he’s clearly not hurting the team defensively, barring the occasional blunder, of which every player makes, without exception.

To further make this point, Matthews is 10th among centres in the percentage of total goals scored for his team, while he’s on the ice (a 57% better mark than Connor McDavid) and his 54% expected goals is superior to McDavid, Draisaitl, MacKinnon and Barkov.

But do you remember why the Toronto Maple Leafs drafted him?

Eventually yes, the team does want him to be one of the best two-way players in the NHL — which I’m sure he wants to be too. But that wasn’t why the Toronto Maple Leafs drafted him in the first place.

Every team in the NHL saw him for one reason only; scoring.

He’s the 2nd fastest player ever to score 100 even-strength goals, behind arguably the best goal scorer ever, Alexander Ovechkin. It only took Matthews 244 games to reach that mark, one game off Ovechkin’s record.

To say that Matthews isn’t good is absurd.  To say he’s not the best defensively is understandable, but the statistical impact he has suggests it’s a bad take. He’s one of the best goal scorers in the NHL and while he does need some work, you have to remember he’s only 22, and yet, already he has the statistical impact of an elite two-way centre.

He does occasionally look disinterested and bad defensively, so I’d understand why people complain. But defense isn’t the reason the Toronto Maple Leafs drafted him. He’s not horrible in his own end, and when playing with John Tavares and Jason Spezza, there’s a lot he can learn to be better.

The fact is, when you’re watching games, the bad plays stick out in your head and take on a disproportionate amount of weight in your analysis.  This is called confirmation bias and it’s the reason statistical analysis is so important.

Matthews tends to tilt the ice in the Leafs direction whenever he plays, and that leads to solid defensive metrics.   There’s a lot he has to improve on, but there’s time and the resources for that, and the fact is, if he gets any better it’s going to be scary.