The Toronto Maple Leafs Best Player of All-Time Now Indisputable

The Best Player in the entire history of the Toronto Maple Leafs is a study in irony.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are supposedly located in the centre of the hockey universe, and play in the city that has probably produced the most NHL players of any city in the world. It is then quite the hilarious coincidence that their best player of all-time is a Mexican-American from Arizona, a place that has produced (at least as far as I know) only one professional hockey player.

With apologies to Syl Apps, Ted Kennedy, Johnny Bower, Frank Mahovlich, Turk Broda, George Armstrong, Ace Baily, Charlie Conachar, Red Kelly, Ron Ellis, Dave Keon,  Darryl Sittler, Lanny McDonald, Borje Salming, Rick Vaive, Doug Gilmour, Wendel Clark, Mats Sundin, Phil Kessel, Lonny Bohonos and Mitch Marner, there is no contest – Matthews is the best player to ever put on the Leafs jersey.

Auston Matthews is, hands down, with no qualifiers, or questions, the best player in the history of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Auston Matthews Is the Best Toronto Maple Leafs Player Ever

From his first game when he famously scored four times, Auston Matthews has clearly been a special player.   (stats from quanthockey.com).

By the end of this season he will sit 18th in all-time Leafs scoring, having played just over 400 games and six seasons.  If he stays healthy it’s not impossible he could be in the top ten by the end of next season.

He is already 11th in total goals.  If he keeps scoring at the same pace, he’ll be top five by the end of next season.

He is only 24 years old.  He ranks 82nd in franchise games played.

The crazy thing about these numbers is that he only ever played a full NHL season as a rookie. Since then there have been injuries, and multiple seasons shortened by Covid.

As I write this, he’s scored over 60 goals in his last 82 games, and over 70 in his last 82 home games.  He has currently scored 13 goals in his last ten games, and is probably the front runner for the Hart Trophy since he has also taken a turn into being an elite defender.

He is on fire, and has 20 goals in 27 games (again, as I write this) and yet he is still quite a bit below his career shooting percentage, which suggests he’s getting unlucky.

Matthews will probably win a Hart Trophy and a Stanley Cup before his career is over. Even if he doesn’t, what we’ve seen up to this point has been amazing.  He is the kind of player where superlatives fail to do him justice because to even try you have to start at a level that would normally seen like an exaggeration.

He is the best player the Leafs have ever had.