3 Predictions for the Toronto Maple Leafs In the 2021 Season

2. Auston Matthews Scores 40 Plus Goals

2019-20 stats – 70 GP – 47 G – 33 A – 80 PTS – CF% 53.9%

Career stats – 282 GP – 158 G – 127 A – 285 PTS – CF% 52.6%

Now some of you may be thinking to yourself right now, 40 plus goals in 56 games for Auston Matthews? I know right it seems like a lot, but at the same time it really doesn’t because this is Auston Matthews we’re talking about, someone who just scored 47 goals in 70 games last year, which was a 55 goal pace in an 82 game season.

In order to pull this off, Matthews would only have to slightly improve his scoring from last year.   Based on last year’s pace, he would scored 38 goals in 56 games, so a prediction of 40 really isn’t too crazy, especially considering that Matthews definitely has the potential to score 60+ over a full season.

Matthews has been the NHL’s best 5v5 goal scorer since his first NHL game, and he still hasn’t peaked.  Scoring 40 goals this season should be something he does fairly easily, especially considering how many games the Leafs will play against weak teams.

With players around him like Mitch Marner, John Tavares and William Nylander it’s never out of the window that a guy like him could do something like this but I guess we’ll just have to wait and see if it actually happens.