The Toronto Maple Leafs haven’t finished the 2019-20 season yet, but some interesting comparisons have me talking about 2020-21 already.
Auston Matthews is the face of the Toronto Maple Leafs and has the ability to single-handily lead his team to a Stanley Cup.
His skill-set to score goals 5v5, play perfect defense by stick-lifting any player in the NHL makes him more valuable than any other player on the Leafs, and one could argue that he’s the most valuable player to his team in the entire league.
As crazy as it may seem, when the 2020-21 season begins, Auston Matthews will be entering his fifth year as a professional.
It feels like yesterday that the Toronto Maple Leafs were rebuilding and selected Matthews with the first overall selection in the 2016 NHL Entry Draft.
Nevertheless, there’s something special about Year Five for some of the best players currently in the NHL and a few recent retired great ones.
Year Five is a Special Season For NHL Players
Like many jobs you’ve had in your career, you’re not a master at it in year one, but by year five you should be pretty damn good at it.
After you figure out how everything works and gain some confidence, you’re typically set to lead and train others to become the next you at this point.
The same way your typically work career goes in the office can also be applied on the ice.
Year Five means special things for players and typically career years.
Let’s look at a four players (past and present) that shined in their fifth year.
- Steve Yzerman
- 1987-88 season: 50 goals and 102 points (64 games played)
- Previous Career High: 39 goals, 90 points
- Corey Perry
- 2010-11 season: 50 goals, 104 points (82 games played)
- Previous Career High: 32 Goals, 76 points
- Awards: Maurice ‘Rocket’ Richard Trophy & Hart Trophy
- Nathan MacKinnion
- 2017-18 season: 39 goals, 97 points (74 games played)
- Previous Career High: 24 goals, 63 points
- Nikita Kucherov
- 2017-18 season: 39 goals, 100 points (80 games played)
- Previous Career High: 40 goals, 85 points
As you can see with every player on this list, their point totals jumped immensely in Year Five by an average of 20 points per player.
Not only that, but besides Kucherov, every player scored double-digit more goals than their previous best, and Corey Perry even won a ‘Rocket’ Richard and Hart Trophy in his fifth year.
If this same career path is taken by Matthews, 55 goals and 95 points wouldn’t be out of the question for the young superstar next season.
Matthews is continuing to get better each and every year and although we want him to win the Hart Trophy and ‘Rocket’ Richard Trophy every single season, he’s still only 22 years old and isn’t in the prime of his career yet.
There is a ton of great young talent in the NHL, but there’s arguably nobody better at his age than Matthews, so we should expect huge things for him in year five.