Does the Toronto Maple Leafs Captain deserve criticism?

The Toronto Maple Leafs can have a look at the standings this morning and feel lucky that no other teams in the Atlantic Division outside of the Florida Panthers have played well enough to put a gap between them and the blue and white.

The Toronto Maple Leafs currently sit third in their division with an unsatisfying 6-5-2 (this was written before last night's game against the Boston Bruins) to start to the season, good for third place in a log jam of seven teams that are within five points of each other.

The record and position should feel like a disappointment to the players and while the coaching staff and management can take a bit of ownership, the guys on the ice need to have some self reflection of what is not going wrong for the team.

There are some easy decisions that should be made which is that Ryan Reaves is not an NHL player and putting him out there game after game is a waste. At best, you can leave a game saying Reaves wasn't bad, but if that is the perfect scenario that should be reason enough not to play him. However, even with Reaves in the line-up that is not the cause for a disappointing start to the season.

Does the Toronto Maple Leafs Captain deserve criticism?

Hands down, the greatest goal scorer of the last decade in the NHL is Auston Matthews, however, with just six goals and 15 points in his last 20 games dating back through last year's playoffs and regular season he is leaving fans wanting more.

The 2016 first overall pick now wears the captaincy in Toronto, is the highest paid player in the league (for this season) and gets nearly 21-minutes a night. There is no doubt that the play is controlled by the Maple Leafs while he is on the ice, but being one of the elite he needs to take it a step further.

Like linemate Mitch Marner, it seems like the two superstars have become to comfortable playing on the perimeter and not driving towards the net. Matthews still works well on the boards and is arguably the best in the league at this skill, but him and his winger need to start driving to create more havoc in front of the net. Often watching shift after shit, the two are controlling the puck skating around the perimeter, but teams are allowing them to do this as they know by keeping the puck away from the net there are no high danger chances.

When they aren't scoring a lot, you notice these kinds of things. Yet, when you look it up, you see that Matthews is still getting just about the same quality of chances that he's always gotten. His expected goals numbers show he's dominating when he's on the ice.

So does he deserve criticism for his start to the season? Well yeah, a little. It's his job to execute and the Leafs power-play is an embarassment, and if nothing else, he's got to own that. Otherwise, we should probably cut him a break.

As we learned yesterday, he is injured. Who knows if it's been affecting his game, or if he's been playing through it, but it's at least a likely factor. Also, his shooting percentage is way, way down and will eventually normalize. There is also the fact that Berube has him killing penalties and taking the most d-zone draws on the team. These things will hurt his 5v5 production, and likely the trade-off isn't worth it, but the Leafs are not a deep team, at least not right now.

Overall, injuries aside, Matthews needs to execute, but he can't realy do much more. He's getting his looks and the goals will come. The coach needs to deploy him more effectively, however, that much is obvious.