Toronto Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews is currently having the worst season of his career, yet nobody seems too concerned right now.
If the Toronto Maple Leafs can't win a playoff series when Auston Matthews scores 69 goals in a season, why should we expect them to win one when he's on pace for 32 goals? I know that Matthews has missed almost 20 percent of the season this year, so his goal totals are naturally down, but he's still scoring at his lowest goals per-game rate since his rookie season.
If you look at Matthews' career average, he scores 0.64 goals per game, while this season he's scoring 0.48 goals per game.
In a seven-game series, that's only a one-goal per series difference so you may not think it's a lot, but that goal could be the difference between winning or losing.
Matthews Shooting Percentage is Lowest Of His Career
Funny enough, Matthews' shooting percentage of 12.3 percent is the lowest it's been since 2022-23 when he had a 12.2 shooting percentage. During that season, Matthews missed eight games and was still able to score 40 goals. Not too shabby of a season for a player who was technically the most "snake-bitten" they've ever been.
You can look to that season as an optimistic Leafs fan and say there's nothing to worry about, because any team would take a 40-goal scorer as their leading offensive weapon, or you can look into it in more detail and get very nervous about Matthews' health.
You see, in summer of 2022, Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman suggested that "Matthews had wrist surgery in August 2021, but may have had another, minor procedure in the summer of 2022 that robbed him of being fully able to train that off-season."
Hmmm, very interesting.
Earlier this season, Matthews missed time with "upper-body injury" and during that time-off, he took a trip to Germany to visit a doctor, who the Leafs had previously used for consultations. It's pretty clear that Matthews has a nagging injury because he even missed time during the Four Nations Face-Off, forcing Team USA to play a forward short all night.
Matthews Injury Is Very Reminiscent of 2023
Although that game didn't neccesarily mean anything, you don't usually see the captain of the national team taking a night off, especially when they haven't played true best-on-best international hockey in nine years.
With Matthews currently on-pace to register the worst goal-totals of his career, and I think Leafs Nation needed to be concerned. Funny enough, the only time the Leafs actually made the Second Round was when Matthews had his worst shooting percentage of his career, so maybe that luck will continue, but I think former GM Kyle Dubas recognized that issue midseason and made enough trades to help support Matthews' injury.
The Leafs acquried Ryan O'Reilly, Luke Schenn, Noel Acciari, Erik Gustafsson, Sam Lafferty and even added Matthew Knies out of college, so the team drastically changed from what it looked like at the start of the season and that was reflected in the playoffs. As a result, current GM Brad Treliving needs to recognize Matthews' lesser ability to score and add some depth.
An unhealthy Matthews is still better than half the league, but in order to give this team the best shot at winning a Stanley Cup, they need to grab another superstar who can help support at the NHL Trade Deadline this year.