The Maple Leafs are second in the National Hockey League in wins and Auston Matthews hasn’t started making a difference yet.
The way that only he can.
There is no scorer in hockey like him and he is searching to find his hands and the game he left behind a season ago. It’s not as if he’s not getting opportunities. In the first 25 minutes against the Anaheim Ducks on Thursday night at Scotiabank Arena, Matthews had an unofficial mark of seven quality scoring chances.
Seven chances and zero goals scored.
Most of those chances were from in tight, the kind that would light up Matthews eyes, then his smile, then make the light go red. He scored 69 goals last season. No one has ever done that around here. He scored 60 two years before that. He has scored more even-strength goals in his first eight years than anyone — including Alexander Ovechkin — in hockey.
But not much is happening this year. Not lately for the new captain of the Leafs, coming back from injury.
He has nine goals in 20 games. That’s scoring at 36-goal pace, the lowest of his career. That’s also a 78-point pace. Those are numbers for mere mortals.
Matthews had 69 goals and 107 points before he wore the C. And on any given night, maybe Saturday or maybe Sunday, or maybe any day ending in Y, he can begin the return to form.
The Leafs need him to be what he is — and that’s the best goal-scorer in the game.
They have Mitch Marner setting up Matthews about as well as he has ever created offence before. They have William Nylander doing things only Nylander can do — such as the goal he scored last night, defecting a puck while skating at full speed to the net, then batting it out of the air for a goal.
The Leafs, as a team, have a kind of brilliance few teams can match when their best are playing the way Marner, Nylander and John Tavares played against the Ducks — even with Marner missing two empty-net possibilities in the final minute of play.
If Marner ends this season with 99 points, which is entirely possible, you can look back at Thursday night and wonder why, again, he didn’t get to 100.
But none of that matters as much as Matthews scoring goals at even strength. For all that has gone right with the Leafs this season — the great goaltending, the smarter defensive play, a style of play which should enhance their record now and in the playoffs — the one thing they haven’t been doing enough of is scoring at even strength.
That can get you through the tough nights. That can get you through games against the best teams in hockey.
The rather shocking Washington Capitals have scored 75 goals at 5-on-5 this season. The Leafs have scored just 50.
Matthews, first in the NHL in 5-on-5 scoring last season, first in the NHL five times in his career, ranks 42nd in the league this season heading into Friday’s games. No. 42 is someplace you’d expect to find a second-line player. Or a guy whose name you barely know.
It’s not where you’d expect to see the highest-paid player in hockey. The natural. The captain. The possible captain of Team USA. The best shooter in the game. The best shooter Toronto has ever known.
The other night, against New Jersey, Matthews had a bunch of scoring chances in regulation time, three of them on his stick in scoring position. Twice he shot wide. Once he shot the puck directly at the Devils goaltender. That didn’t seem much like Matthews.
Then he won the game in overtime on a how-did-he-do-that kind of breakaway goal. At full speed, being chased, he found a way to find the top corner of the goal from the foot of the crease. Steve Yzerman used to do that kind of thing years ago. Not many others can.
Matthews has always been a not-many-others kind of player, minus the playoff success. One of these years, that will change. One of these years, he won’t be hurt and his hands, his head and his feet will be in sync come April and May. One of these years.
He’s fortunate to play with Tavares and Nylander and now with the natural old man, Max Pacioretty, around the goal. It means Leafs can win without Matthews scoring. But they’ll never be able to win big — and haven’t in the past — when he isn’t absolutely superb.
Coach Craig Berube has been appreciative of Matthews from the day he took over the Leafs. He likes his attitude. He likes his aptitude. He likes the depth of Matthews’ game. And like everyone following the Leafs, he wouldn’t mind seeing a goal or two more often.
“Well, I’m not concerned with it,” Berube said, only fibbing slightly about Matthews’ lack of goals. And then sounding like every NHL coach ever born: “I’d be more concerned if he wasn’t getting the opportunities.”
I don’t know what would worry me more. Mathews not scoring and not getting opportunities. Or Matthews not scoring enough and getting plenty of opportunities.
“I think he’s playing good hockey,” said Berube. “I mean, he’s playing 200 feet, he’s playing defensively, faceoffs, killing penalties. He’s doing a lot of good stuff for the team.
“Yes, we need him to produce and he will. I mean, sometimes they don’t go in all the time, but he’s getting the looks, he’s taking pucks to the net hard, he’s playing a physical game … We need him to score (but) I’m not concerned about it.”
The Leafs need their captain to be great. That’s why he’s wearing the ‘C’. That’s why they’re paying him the most money of any player in the league. Better than his strength or his smarts, his skating, size, or game understanding is his inane natural ability to score goals. He does it as well as anyone who has ever played.
The sooner he regains that lost art, the better it will be for the Leafs.
ssimmons@postmedia.com
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