Auston Matthews is the most talented player in Toronto Maple Leafs history. There’s no ifs, ands or buts about it.
Lack of team success in the playoffs aside, he is objectively the player with the most tools and the best skillset to ever put on a Maple Leafs jersey. Older fans will look to the likes of Doug Gilmour, Dave Keon, and Mats Sundin in this discussion, but the Leafs have never had a 60-goal scorer in their history, let alone one who brings Selke-quality defence to the table as well. For all the frustration the lack of playoff success can bring, he also has a unique ability to kick things up a couple of gears and make you sit back thinking “Who is this guy?”. Just look at the start of last season, when he opened the season with two hat tricks in the first two games.
From the moment Matthews stepped on the ice for his first NHL game, he’s been accomplishing things that Leafs fans haven’t seen in a long time, especially not during the period of 2005-2016. He scored four goals in his debut and finished his rookie season with Calder Trophy honours as the league’s best rookie, along with 40 goals. He’s virtually improved every single year since then, save for a slight dip in goals in his sophomore season.
He flirted with a 50-goal pace in 2019-20 and 2020-21 but never actually hit the mark thanks to the shutdown and prompt juggling of the season standards due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but once things returned to normalcy in 2021-22, he finally popped off and blew past the 50-goal mark, scoring 60 goals and becoming the first NHLer to do so since Steven Stamkos did it in 2011-12, and two years later, he became the ninth player in NHL history to score at least 60 goals more than once, yet again blowing past his career high and finishing the season with 69 goals.
These two seasons didn’t come without an uncharacteristic drop in goals back in 2022-23, when he seemed to be battling some sort of wrist injury that limited him to only 40 goals (yes, only 40). That said, the Leafs broke their 19-year playoff round win slump that season, and if you ask Matthews, he’d probably take that kind of success over any personal success at this point.
Now 27 years old with eight seasons under his belt, Matthews is heading into the 2024-25 season in the prime of his career and a new accolade to go with it – the captaincy. He was announced as the team’s 26th captain in Maple Leafs history on August 14, in somewhat of a “passing of the torch” situation with John Tavares. Discussions were apparently had about the switch following the end of last season, and to Matthews, it’s an honour that eclipses any sort of personal success.
“I’ve got chills, honestly,” Matthews told media at the introductory press conference. “I’m so honoured and humbled. Since being drafted here eight years ago, you realize how special it is to play for the City of Toronto. To wear the Maple Leaf on your chest every single night, it just means the world. To have support from Johnny (Tavares) my teammates, our staff, ownership, my family, it just means the world to me.”
Although running back the same core and trying to win more than a single playoff round for the ninth year in a row might seem like another classic “same old song and dance” type of situation, Matthews having a “C” on his jersey feels a little bit like a turn of the tide for this team. That’s not to say that Tavares wasn’t a good captain – he clearly had the respect of his teammates and had no issues passing it on to Matthews, but sometimes a new voice is needed in that respect, and with new responsibilities, it will be interesting to see how he incorporates those new responsibilities into his game night in and night out.
The expectation – Keep scoring goals, embrace new leadership role
As I alluded to, Matthews will have more than just scoring goals and providing solid defence on his plate this year. But now that we’ve seen that he can essentially sleep his way to 50+ goals, the focus will shift to how he handles things when the team is struggling and/or battling adversity as captain. Sure, he’s got a whole season ahead of him that will likely be full of goals and highlight-reel moments, but a lot of bad things can happen over the course of an 82-game season. He feels he’s ready for that kind of responsibility and evidently the team does too, so it will be interesting to see how the team responds in those moments, both under a new captain and a new coaching staff.
If he can avoid a drastic dip in goal scoring like he saw in 2022-23, the Leafs should be set up well for success. He obviously has the talent and the ability to score more than 60, and although nobody would be surprised if he hit that mark again (or even improved on it), his intangibles outside of filling the net with pucks will ultimately be more valuable to the team if he does come up short.
The goal – Lead the Maple Leafs to the promised land
A lot of pressure comes with being the captain of an NHL team, let alone a historic one with so many recent struggles to be relevant beyond the months of October and April, so there will be some extra focus on what he does differently than Tavares, and how much it impacts both his own game on the ice and the team around him. People will of course celebrate if he hits 60 again, or manages to hit that coveted 70-goal mark, but in the end, there’s nothing he can do that will win the fans over for life more than finally bringing them the playoff success that they’ve craved for so long.
A Stanley Cup is the ultimate goal – that’s no secret. And this team does have the talent to do it. But they’ve had the talent to do it for the past half decade. It’s a matter of executing, and while it will obviously take a total team effort, Matthews will have more eyes on him than anybody else. He has a legitimate chance to cement himself as the biggest legend in Leafs history with a “C” on his jersey, and if he can be the person at the forefront of any significant improvement in the playoffs let alone a Cup, he’ll be well on his way to doing so.
