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At the same stage of his season last year, Auston Matthews had already scored an astounding 42 goals — nearly double what he’s managed for the Toronto Maple Leafs through 49 games this season. Matthews is sitting on 23 goals, a total he required just 27 games to reach last season when he registered the most goals — 69 — by an NHLer in nearly 30 years and tied for the 15th-most all-time. Matthews has scored only three times in the last 15 games and one of those goals was fired into an empty net.
Advertisement The NHL’s longtime five-on-five goals king has scored only once at five-on-five in that 15-game stretch, which dates back to the end of January. Matthews has never had a season quite like this scoring the rock. It speaks to what a special player Matthews is that he still ranks 14th in the NHL in goals per game this season among those who’ve played in at least 30 games (0.
47), just behind David Pastrnak (0.50), Kyle Connor (0.50) and Sam Reinhart (0.
49), and just in front of John Tavares (0.46), Nikita Kucherov (0.46) and Mikko Rantanen (0.
45). Matthews’ 82-game pace, mind you, would still be the highlight of most players’ careers: 39 goals and 94 points. But most players aren’t Auston Matthews, a three-time Rocket Richard Trophy winner who won last year’s goals race by 12, a perennial Hart Trophy candidate and the owner of the highest cap hit ($13.
25 million) in the league this season. His standard is so much higher. What is going on here? And what does it mean for the Leafs and their Stanley Cup aspirations? The simplest answer for all of this still seems to be the right one: Matthews isn’t at 100 percent, or close to it, physically.
That, as the captain of a team trying to win its division, Matthews has simply decided he must play through the same injury (and accompanying discomfort) that’s bothered him since training camp. Matthews hasn’t said this. But it’s evident in what we can see.
Matthews doesn’t look nearly as explosive moving around the ice and his shot doesn’t feel anywhere near as lethal. The numbers back this up. Though Matthews’ top skating speed (35.
9 kilometres an hour) is about where it was last season (36.2), it’s the bursts of speed that are lacking — his ability to break away from his competitors. Matthews ranked in the NHL’s 93rd percentile for the number of bursts between 29 and 32 km/hour last season and 79th in bursts that fell into the 32-25 range.
Advertisement This year, he sits in the 67th percentile for the former and 51st for the latter. Then there’s the shot, which isn’t carrying the same pop or accuracy, or volume for that matter, as customary for someone who was arguably the greatest shooter in the NHL from the day he started. Matthews is shooting it slightly harder on average (92 km/hr) than last season (88), but those shots aren’t fooling (embarrassing?) goalies like they did.
Matthews scored on almost a third of his slap shots last season — 10 goals on just 31 shots. But this year, he’s shooting just 8.7 percent with the slapper, with only three goals on 23 shots.
Matthews shot 18 percent on wrist shots last year, piling up a league-high 36 such goals (seven more than anyone else). This year, he’s shooting 11 percent on wristers, with only 12 goals. Matthews is shooting it less than last year (down a half a shot per game) and has missed the net on more than a quarter (25.
8 percent) of his attempts, up slightly from last season (23.8). It’s worth wondering how much of the decline is tied to head coach Craig Berube’s ground-and-pound offence, which has the Leafs chucking more point shots (and hoping for opportunities to spring from there) at the cost of puck possession.
Matthews doesn’t appear to have the puck on his stick as much as he did in the Sheldon Keefe era, nor do the calibre of looks he’s getting feel as high. A little more give-and-go action would help as Matthews moves quite well off the puck. He simply hasn’t been as sharp with the puck though: His giveaways are way up.
There’s a case to be made that prior to this season, Matthews was probably the NHL’s best five-on-five player, what with his scoring, play-driving ability and defence. He hasn’t had nearly that kind of impact this season. Matthews has never scored this little at five on five — 0.
95 goals per 60 minutes. That number last season: 1.84.
There’s some unluckiness there shooting the puck (8.9 percent, a career low). However, Matthews isn’t generating the same quantity or quality of looks as usual either, a likely byproduct of his physical limitations and the system.
The Leafs are used to obliterating teams in Matthews’ five-on-five minutes. In the 2020-21 season, they pumped foes by 25 goals. The following season, 28 goals.
The year after that, 38 goals. Last season, the Leafs outscored their opponents 81-53 when Matthews was on the ice, a 28-goal advantage. Massive.
Advertisement This season’s tally: 39-31, only a slight edge. Even still, the Leafs are winning those minutes because Matthews continues to be a very good player, just not as dominantly as before. Again, how much of that is tied to the Berube system is unclear, though it certainly feels like the other part of the equation.
So what can the Leafs do about this? Another large chunk of time off no longer feels like a viable option, not with only 18 games to go and not with the Atlantic Division at stake. Thanks to the team’s salary-cap situation post-trade deadline, the Leafs don’t have enough (many) extra bodies around these days to give Matthews more than the odd night off. They also tried extended periods of rest twice already this season — a nine-game absence in November and a six-game break into the New Year — to no lasting effect.
The Leafs could (and probably should) cut his minutes somewhat the rest of the way, get him under 20 minutes a game, for example. (One easy fix would be to hand newcomer Scott Laughton some or all of Matthews’ penalty-killing minutes.) Another option: Flip Mitch Marner onto John Tavares’ wing and try to send more defensive zone draws that line’s way, in addition to the Laughton unit — and hope that works come playoff time.
Can the Leafs win a Stanley Cup with this version of Matthews? Sure. It’s just that much harder, especially on the scoring end of things for a team that already had question marks there. William Nylander and Marner will need to be playoff rock stars.
Tavares will need to survive difficult matchups and still score. Matthew Knies, Bobby McMann, Nick Robertson and a variety of others will need to chip in offensively. The goaltending will need to be elite.
So will the defending (an area of real concern for the Leafs in recent months). The power play will need to bring momentum, not sap it. Advertisement Again and again over the years, the Leafs have stepped up their collective game when Matthews isn’t around, including in wins over the Bruins in Games 5 and 6 last spring.
They will need to summon that same mentality, with Matthews still in the lineup, later this spring. The Leafs also have to hope that Matthews can still elevate in key moments and strike when they need him to. There were glimpses of what that could look like at the 4 Nations Face-Off when Matthews, after a quiet tournament, summoned something extra and nearly ended the final against Team Canada multiple times in overtime.
A better example: The 2023 playoffs. Following an injury-plagued season that still saw him score 40 goals in 74 games, Matthews came up huge in Game 4 against the Lightning when he cut a 4-1 deficit to one with back-to-back goals a few minutes apart in the third period. The Leafs emerged in overtime.
Matthews scored in each of the two games after that. That team was deeper than this one up front and still lost in the second round though when Matthews (among others) was unable to break through offensively. Matthews will eventually bust out of this scoring slump.
And maybe, after an incredibly busy couple of months, which saw him go straight from western Canada with the Leafs to the 4 Nations for Team USA to playing another seven of nine on the road again for the Leafs, Matthews will re-energize before the playoffs — not that the schedule really slows down before then. In the end, it just might be one of those years that Matthews has to grind through as best as he can and the supporting cast has to step up and push the Leafs deeper than they’ve gone before. — Stats and research courtesy of Natural Stat Trick, Evolving Hockey and Hockey Reference.
(Top photo: Charles LeClaire / Imagn Images).
