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The Everything Auston Matthews thread

zeke said:
we really do underrate Auston, mostly because he just doesn't get the minutes that the top scorers do.

Primary Points Per 60 at Even Strength, Last 2yrs:

Malkin 2.59
McDavid 2.30
Matthews 2.28
Marchand 2.13
Kucherov 2.09

And Malkin has the benefit of not having to face the other team's shutdown guys every shift.

and oh yeah, that includes Auston's rookie season.
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Where does he rank/compare to those guys in PP points per 60 over the last two years?
 
...and, of course, unlike all the other top PP scorers, the leafs don't stack their top PP unit, and their PP guys get half the PP time that the top PP producers do.
 
Montana said:
Where does he rank/compare to those guys in PP points per 60 over the last two years?
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Kucheov 7.51 (5.31 primary)
Malkin 7.18 (4.47)
Marchand 6.29 (4.19)
Matthews 5.50 (3.79)
McDavid 5.73 (3.01)


Last Year Only

Kucherov 7.42 (5.94)
Matthews 6.55 (5.06)
Malkin 6.05 (4.47)
Marchand 6.67 (3.48)
McDavid 6.35 (3.42)
 
Yeah, 5.5 ain't what a best player in the league should be putting up...(is he at like 4.4 this year to have dragged it down that much?)

If Matthews was up at 6.55 again or in that Malkin/Kucherov 7.5 range......and had the icetime those guys get, he'd unquestionably be talked about as a top 3 player in the league right now.




The really weird thing (to me) is how he's one of the best ES scorers ever....yet is so mediocre a goal scorer on the PP. He starts scoring like a Kucherov or Stamkos on the PP, and he's gonna be flirting with 60 goal seasons.
 
Montana said:
The really weird thing (to me) is how he's one of the best ES scorers ever....yet is so mediocre a goal scorer on the PP. He starts scoring like a Kucherov or Stamkos on the PP, and he's gonna be flirting with 60 goal seasons.
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I think a large part of this is usage/scheme

Instead of putting him in the middle of the ice (where his quick hands/release could turn pucks that reach the middle of the penalty killing box into goals in a hurry) or even on his off wing where it's far easier to move towards the middle of the ice to get a shot off (and opens up off wing one timers) we put him (and Nylander) on their strong side wings at the half boards and just have them ragging the puck around the top of the umbrella with Jake (who isn't exactly a great distributor up there imo) all of them trying to get the puck into the middle of the ice for someone else to put in the net. Nobody is afraid of Jake shooting the puck, so the box gets wide to take away the step in wrister from the half boards.

It's honestly a pretty bad scheme given the talent we have, and a pretty bad division of talent. It's like we split our PP groups in passers vs shooters. All of our guys who are shoot first players (or at least feature heavier shots) play on the one unit (Matthews, Willy, Jake, Marleau) and all of our guys to tend to need to pass the puck into the net (or get shots from in tight) are on the other PP (Mitch, Rielly, Bozak, JVR, Kadri).
 
There was just an article on the Athletic analyzing the PPs. The issue the first half of the year was mostly shooting SH%. But at some point they also switched Matthews and Nylander to their offwings and all the numbers fell off a cliff.
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That’s bizarre. They’ve actually been generating chances at roughly the same rate they did last season, but the goals have disappeared. They outperformed their expected goals in 2016-2017, but they’ve drastically underperformed them this season. The shooting percentage Gods must have really turned on them this year.

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Well, would you look at that, the Leafs’ mysterious drop in PP% coincides with the second unit’s shooting percentage falling off a cliff. Anytime we see a drop this big, it’s a pretty good bet that it’ll regress to the mean over time. That means there’s nothing to worry about with the Matthews-Nylander unit, right?

..

Bringing this back to the Leafs, Matthews and Nylander were excellent at generating Royal Road passes last year. It was their bread and butter on the power play, which helps explain why they were able to maintain such a high shooting percentage last season and outperform their expected goals (a metric based on shot locations, not pre-shot movement).

When it comes to the 2017-18 season, I think the Matthews-Nylander unit was much better at generating Royal Road passes earlier in the year. Unfortunately, we don’t have the data to confirm this (Corey Sznajder tried to get it for me, but the samples were just too small), so we’re going to have to rely on the infamous “eye test” for this analysis.

What we’re looking for is something stylistically that changed in the Matthews-Nylander power play around Jan. 1. The unit’s shooting percentage was solid prior to the New Year (12.3 per cent), but it’s been in free fall ever since (4.4 per cent). Although there’s certainly an element of bad luck in there, I can point to one significant change that’s resulted in a more stagnant power play.

It doesn’t get talked about much, but the Leafs moved Matthews and Nylander to their off-side right around that Jan. 1 date I keep bringing up (they’ve recently moved back, but they were playing there for a solid 5-6 weeks).

...

The problem with putting Matthews and Nylander on their off-side is that they don’t have a one-timer comparable to shooters like Stamkos, Ovechkin or Laine. Although we’ve seen Nylander blast a couple slap shots past NHL goaltenders, he’s a lot more dangerous with his wrist shot. When it comes to Matthews’ clapper…let’s just say his wrist shot is much better.

These two are excellent at beating goaltenders with wristers from their strong side, but aren’t nearly as good at doing so with a one-timer from the top of the circle on their off-side. With this being the case, I would argue that playing them on their off-side is actually disadvantageous.
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https://theathletic.com/249338/2018...lander-scoring-on-the-power-play-this-season/
 
Matthews should be well over a PPG with his talent. Hopefully they start using him a bit more. Guy is an absolute horse and the prototypical team-carrying centreman.

shame he got hurt this year or he'd be pushing for 50 goals.
 
Montana said:
.(is he at like 4.4 this year to have dragged it down that much?)
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more like 3.4.

If Matthews was up at 6.55 again or in that Malkin/Kucherov 7.5 range......and had the icetime those guys get, he'd unquestionably be talked about as a top 3 player in the league right now.
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it would help if he played on a stacked PP unit like those guys do (and every other top PP guy does).

we should be running this out for near 4 minutes a game of PP time:

JVR/Kadri

Nylander - Matthews - Marner

Mo/Jake​

not saddling matthews with Leo and Brown and (bless his heart) 38yr old marleau.

The really weird thing (to me) is how he's one of the best ES scorers ever....yet is so mediocre a goal scorer on the PP. He starts scoring like a Kucherov or Stamkos on the PP, and he's gonna be flirting with 60 goal seasons.
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eh, he was top-30 in PP gls/60 last year as a rookie. nothing mediocre there.
 
Orr also mentioned Tavares not signing in TO for the money. Will Papi take less?
 
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Dubas should be filling these guys' ears right now with stuff like signing now (as in, this offseason) for a little less in order to create a dynasty will free up the team's hands to make even more moves.

If we know Nylander and Marner sign for $6.5m or so, and Matthews for $10m, then maybe we have the predictability going forward to be able to make another splash and somehow land Karlsson or the next big time player who suddenly becomes available.

Also, these kids at 20 and 21 years old, negotiating their first contract with just a couple of years under their belts, really should just take a fair amount and happily run to the bank. Get yourself set for life and then worry about making more on the next contract when you're closing in on 30 years old.
 
Jeremy said:
Orr also mentioned Tavares not signing in TO for the money. Will Papi take less?
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Having heard an audio clip of Orr's comments, I didn't necessarily interpret them that way.

I think Orr was mainly trying to underscore the fact that Matthews wants to be here, and that he doesn't expect the Leafs & Auston will have trouble settling on a dollar figure.
 
If you sign AM a year early (ie this year) could you give him a lump sum signing bonus right now, for this year, and then the actual contract comes into effect next year so in some weird way its a 9 year deal? ie we use some of this years cap space with the signing bonus.... so in actuality it spreads the cap hit to 9 years.

If he's given an 8 million dollar signing bonus this year (like a 1 year deal)... then he gets an eight years extension for 9.5 AAV.... (the 8 million bonus given is like giving him an AAV of 10.5)
 
Hoss said:
If you sign AM a year early (ie this year) could you give him a lump sum signing bonus right now, for this year, and then the actual contract comes into effect next year so in some weird way its a 9 year deal? ie we use some of this years cap space with the signing bonus.... so in actuality it spreads the cap hit to 9 years.

If he's given an 8 million dollar signing bonus this year (like a 1 year deal)... then he gets an eight years extension for 9.5 AAV.... (the 8 million bonus given is like giving him an AAV of 10.5)
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It's not possible to do this under the CBA.

He's already under contract for next year, and you can't in any way re-negotiate that deal or add in or move around any signing bonuses.
 
The cba ...... supposedly this gives each team an equal opportunity in spending in the league.
But it really doesnt. How can you have a team that recieves handouts from the league to operate, and using that same money, is bidding against the teams that handed over the equalization payments.....
Does the league take into account the tax breaks these other teams are able to offer?
These same teams, that use the leafs money (as a have team) and pays to support the have not teams, in their pursuit of free agents? Is like competing against themselves. That is really f---ed.
Why dont they make it that if you are a have not team, get money from the league to boost your revenue, you surrender draft picks or you are mot allowed to use that money to sign free agents.
I dont know the ramifications for such an action (but zeke or minz or gm might) but make it a fair level playing field.
You operate in an area that has no taxes, than if a team bidding on a player that has a 13 percent tax rate gets to bid 13 percent higher without any penalties for cap infringements, to offset the advantages the team with no tax rate obviously has.
 
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worm said:
salary cap is more about revenue distribution than a salary cap the fans care about
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I'm not sure that's entirely true.

It's also very much about enforced talent re-distribution & league parity as well.

Without a cap, or a cap floor, the NHL would be much like MLB, where teams like the Leafs & Rangers could & would easily spend two or three times as much on their player payroll as the teams at the bottom of the heap. And on the flip-side, it keeps someone like Eugene Melnyk from icing a team entirely made up of players on cheap/league minimum contracts.
 
Those are benefits of a cap, but the idea was to lock players salaries in at a level where they can make money.

It'll never be a completely even playing field, nor should we want it to be. The last thing we want is a cap on coaching salaries, preventing us from landing Babs, or a cap on bonus money so we can't pay Tavares $30 mill within a year of signing, or a cap on spending on minor leagues and developments, or training facilities, or sports science departments, or analytics departments, or limiting the ability to bury money. The tax thing is a nice benefit for Tampa, but its not like the Leafs don't have a massive competitive advantage over most teams that they have been exploiting. I mean we just landed one of the best UFAs ever just for being the Leafs.
 
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