Toronto Maple Leafs: Best Player Alive to Host McDavid and the Oilers

The Toronto Maple Leafs will take on the Edmonton Oilers tonight.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have the best GM in the NHL, the Oilers have the worst. 

The Leafs have Matthews and Marner, the Oilers have two guys who score a lot on the power-play.

The Leafs have the deepest team in hockey, the Oilers have a bunch of overpaid ex-Leafs.

One of these teams is the favourite to win this year’s Stanley Cup, the other is going to finally fire Ken Holland in the off-season.

Regardless, it should be a superfun game to watch.

Toronto Maple Leafs vs Edmonton Oilers

Sure Connor McDavid’s 54 goals in 66 games is impressive, but it’s not as impressive as Auston Matthews scoring 51 goals in 50 games, which he did just last year. People weirdly forget that just because it didn’t happen from day one of the season.  They shouldn’t.  Matthews finished with 60 goals while also playing elite defence.

As you can see from the tweet above, Auston Matthews, even in his supposed down year, is a more effective overall player than league MVP Connor McDavid.  Matthews is the NHL’s most complete and best superstar since Mario Lemieux and he is the NHL’s best player.

Connor McDavid scores a lot on the power-play, but roughly 85% of NHL games are played at 5v5 and 5v5 play correlates the most to winning.  PP points are nice, but the Toronto Maple Leafs are six points ahead with two games in hand, and that is before you adjust for the Oilers playing in the easiest division and conference and the Leafs playing in the hardest division and conference.

The Leafs – even in McDavid’s best year – do better when Auston is on the ice than Edmonton does when McDavid is on the ice.  Weirdly I bet this causes a lot of Leafs fans to say “this is why people hate Leafs fans” – yeah playa, the truth hurts!

So yes, I could have used this game preview to talk about the wacky lineup Keefe is putting out once again (Sam Lafferty oh my god!) or I could have reviews each teams most recent games etc.

I could have done an injury report or I could have talked about the starting goalies (Matt Murray for the Leafs and likely Stuart Skinner because Jack Campbell apparently can’t face his former team!).

Instead, I just wanted to use this space to point out that even in a season where he’s played through injury and been unlucky when it comes to shooting-percentage (something players cannot control) Auston Matthews is still the more effective player when it comes to what actually matters – helping his team win at 5v5.

Power Play Points are empty calories.  No offense Edmonton.   The truth hurts.

In his MVP year, Matthews scored 10 more 5v5 goals than anyone else while playing elite defence and scoring 3.37 points per 60 minutes of ice time.  This year, with non-elite defence, McDavid has a measly 2.70 pontes per 60 minutes of ice time. (stats naturalstattrtick.com).

I would expect Matthews to bust his slump against his closest rival and score a his first hat trick of the season. Of course, I always predict he will score a hat trick, so don’t take that too seriously.

What you should take seriously is this: Last Season, Auston Matthews showed he was the best player alive in the world today and no one has yet taken that title from him.  Sure, most people are blinded by the excessive power play scoring, but the truth is the truth.