Toronto Maple Leafs: the Stark Contrast of Auston Matthews 2 Seasons

The Toronto Maple Leafs will take on the Edmonton Oilers tonight in Toronto for the second last time this season.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have owned the Oilers so far this year, posting a 5-1-1 records against them that is probably complimentary to the Oilers given how the games actually unfolded.

The Oilers are third in the Canadian Division, two points back of the Leafs with an extra game played.  The only reason that it’s even close, and that the Leafs aren’t completely running away with the title is because for some reason the Leafs lost six of eight games recently where they played fine, and were deserted by their own goalies, beaten by incredible goalies and unable to score with their league-best powerplay.

It was the kind of perfect storm of circumstances that you build a big lead exactly to defend against.  While facing a bunch of problems that normally won’t be factors (namely their inability to score goals at will, and Freddie Andersen choosing a weird time to do his best Allen Bester impression) the Leafs still held on to first place.

They will look to take the momentum from their victory in Ottawa Thursday and win their third consecutive game for the first time since the last time they beat Edmonton on March 3rd.

Toronto vs Edmonton

A good way to look at the Leafs is that they are a pretty good team who gets a big boost from having the second best player in the world in their lineup every night.

For the first 18 games of the season, Auston Matthews averaged a goal per game, then hurt his wrist.  If you’ve been watching lately, you must have noticed that he isn’t ripping his signature wrist shot at the net as much, if at all, lately.

Since Matthews’ wrist injury, he has three goals in 12 games.  Before his injury, the Leafs were first in the NHL. Since he was injured, they are 20th.

Before injury: best power-play in the NHL.

Since injury: 27th best power-play in the NHL.

It is almost like having a player who – more or less- can be counted on to add one goal to your totals every game makes a massive difference.  Who knew?

The choice of the Leafs to let Matthews play through the injury is a strange one that we likely won’t ever get an answer to.  To be fair, the Leafs – healthy Matthews or not – played much better than their recent record indicates, but remember than prior to his injury he was neck-and-neck in the Hart Trophy race, and McDavid has now locked it up completely. (all stats naturalstattrick.com).

The most important thing , I think, that we can take from this is that Matthews allows the Leafs to win games where they don’t play their best.  Having a bad night? Matthew’s automatic one goal per game can be the difference in the result.  Facing a hot goalie? Is your goalie having a bad night? Can’t get anything going? Doesn’t matter, Matthews gives you a chance to win.

We’ve never seen the Leafs have a player like this, ever.  It’s our own version of having Gretzky, Lemieux, Lindros, Crosby or McDavid – i.e the five players who have made the NHL in the last 40 years who are better than he is.

The Toronto Maple Leafs really are the best team in hockey when Matthews is hot, and the fact they’re still within spitting distance of first place a month after he lost his ability to use his best weapon proves it.