Toronto Maple Leafs: Can Auston Matthews Exceed ESPN Prediction

Wednesday morning EPSN released their 2023-24 predictions for each player across the National Hockey League, including Toronto Maple Leafs star Auston Matthews.

Many considered that the 2022-23 season was a down year for the Toronto Maple Leafs first round pick of 2016 as he finished with “only” 40-goals and 85 points in 74 games.

Matthews would likely agree he would have hoped for bigger numbers last year after collecting the Hart Trophy, Ted Lindsay and Rocket Richard awards the season prior thanks to a 60-goal in 73 game campaign.  However, the former Calder Trophy winner fought another wrist injury that hampered his shooting ability and limited his games played.

Because of the injury, Matthews had a shooting percentage of just 12.2% which was 4.2% below his career average and a full five percent lower than his 60-goal season.

ESPN revealed in their predictions that believed Matthews would likely miss upwards of nine games this season which resulted in his second fifty goal season, as they projected him to record 53-goals and 99-points in 73 games.

Initially, you may feel EPSN is being harsh that they are projecting him to miss nine games, however his track record shows this is a plausible scenario.

Matthews has missed games in each of the last three seasons and has played the full schedule just twice in his seven year career, with the most recent being during the 2019-20 season that was shortened to 70-games because of the pandemic.

The Toronto Maple Leafs Best Player Is Going to Score 82-goals

Fortunately for Maple Leafs fans, James Mirtle revealed on his podcast (The Leaf Report) this week that he had spoke with Matthews’ trainer and he had stated that the big center is in amazing shape and is not just going to pass his franchise record 60-goals, but is going to finish with 82 this season.

While 82-goals may be a lofty goal as no player has scored 70-goals since Teemu Selänne and Alexander Mogilny each collected 76 during the 1992-93 season, and just three players had ever scored 80-goals (Mario Lemieux, Brett Hull and Wayne Gretzky x 2, credit: quanthockey.com),  Matthews did score 50 goals in 50 games two years ago, so who knows what he’s capable of?

In the three seasons prior to last year, Matthews averaged dressing in 94% of his teams games and if he was in that area, that would get him 77 contest, while also averaging 0.76 goals per game.  If he plays that amount of games, while scoring at that pace, Matthews would be in around 58 goals and pass ESPN’s projection.

However, if Matthews can stay healthy, play each game and score at the rate he did during his two Rocket Richard seasons at 0.81 goals per game, the phenom would be up near the 70 goal mark, something no player has done in the salary cap era.

I believe that the 53-goals by Matthews is more in line with him if he misses ten games, is fighting injury again all season and I don’t believe that is the case this year.