Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner are two of the greatest Toronto Maple Leafs of all-time.
It may only be Year 7 for Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner, but they’re already on a historic pace for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Remember when the Leafs were terrible and there was no thought of them ever being good? The team had the infamous “18-wheeler falling off a cliff” season and soon after, Leo Komorov was the team’s representative at the NHL All-Star Game?
All of those terrible days led to the Leafs drafting Mitch Marner fourth-overall and then Auston Matthews first-overall and because of them, this team is as relevant as ever again.
Over the past week, both Matthews and Marner both reached the 500 point milestone, doing it at well above a point-per-game pace. That may have always seemed enviable for these two superstars, but they only became the 12th and 13th players in Leafs history to hit that mark.
Marner is now seventh all-time in team assists, while Matthews is eighth in career goals.
It’s crazy to think, but Matthews is only 124 goals away from the all-time record, so it’s possible he hits that mark by the 2024-25 season, if he’s still with the team. As for Marner, he’s 269 assists away from breaking Borje Salming’s record, so that’ll probably take another three seasons minimum.
Marner & Matthews Are Greatest Duo in Toronto Maple Leafs History
Despite playing on separate lines lately, Marner and Matthews are turning into the best duo this team has ever seen. Say what you want about their playoff success, but they’ve continued to deliver in every regular season game they’ve played and are getting better with age.
The playoff wins will come and they’ll finally be put into the Mount Rushmore of Leafs players, but before that even happens, we need to appreciate what we’re watching every night.
For the past few years, I’ve continued to hammer this thought home. We cannot take the Leafs for granted and wait for the playoffs to determine who they are. The postseason is a small sample size of what this team is and even if they don’t win again, we can still put these players on the pedestal that they deserve to be on.
Just because the Washington Capitals didn’t win for 13 years, it didn’t mean that Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom weren’t any good and the team should’ve walked away from them earlier. They were arguably the Capitals best duo of all-time and the team stuck with them until they finally found lightning in a bottle for one playoff run.
In a 20-year career, you’re lucky to win a championship once, if at all. It takes a ton of luck and timing for it all to work out, so just because you don’t win, doesn’t mean the players are the issue.
The Leafs need to run with Marner and Matthews forever because their point-production and importance to this team is everything. Without them, their identity shrinks to maybe being a playoff contender, but with them, they turn into a Stanley Cup favorite.
Watching these two every other night is spectacular and every fan should feel the same. If you don’t feel this way, I doubt you’re very fun to watch the games with anyways.
Let’s continue to enjoy the ride that these two players are taking us on because before we know it, they’ll not only be Leafs statistic leaders but Leafs Stanley Cup winners.