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What's wrong with Auston Matthews?

Guilt Trip said:
McDavid, Crosby, Malkin, Pasta, Barkov, B Tkachuk, Stamkos, Hedman, Tavares, Toews, Kane, Getzlaf, Perry all had NMCs in year 5, the final year for most, of their 2nd deal. Malkin had a NMC in all 5 years. Tavares signed a 6 year deal and had protection the last 2. McD/Tkachuk got theirs in years 5-8. Marner/Pasta/Barkov protection in years 5,6. Matthews in year 5. Willy only had a M-NTC in year 6 of his deal so Dubas only handed out 2 NMCs in years 5 to the Leafs elite, again pretty normal for your high end stars.
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In most of these cases, the players had a lot more early career playoff success or their AAVs were a lot lower. There are exceptions, I'm sure, but in general the Leafs contract AAVs + playoff records + NMCs make their RFA contracts outliers. I think if we made a table with the data points listed above that would be borne out.

But we oughtn't lose sight of the forest here. Players with NMCs and NTCs that kick in in the last year or two get moved before that happens when it's not working out. Even when the clause is in the contract, teams don't often see their stars walk away and leave them nothing. For that to happen, you need some spectacular mismanagement.
 
I have a new theory: he's playing tentatively because he's in mourning for the old Auston. What I mean is that he's struggling psychologically to come to grips with the fact that he will never be as good as he was. I think we have a long enough timeline of evidence to conclude that whatever injury he's dealing with, he's not getting over it. The question now is, can he come to accept that he needs to remake his game so he can at least play confidently at a lower, but still good, level? Perhaps become more of a JVR net-front guy, for example.

It's not simply a matter of losing confidence. It's deeper than that. It's the shock and dismay of seeing your skills go south when you should be in your prime.

My point is there are two related components to the inconsistent player we see now: the physical, the mystery injury (my best guess: back problem), and a pretty deep psychological one.
 
ZBBM said:
I have a new theory: he's playing tentatively because he's in mourning for the old Auston. What I mean is that he's struggling psychologically to come to grips with the fact that he will never be as good as he was. I think we have a long enough timeline of evidence to conclude that whatever injury he's dealing with, he's not getting over it. The question now is, can he come to accept that he needs to remake his game so he can at least play confidently at a lower, but still good, level? Perhaps become more of a JVR net-front guy, for example.

It's not simply a matter of losing confidence. It's deeper than that. It's the shock and dismay of seeing your skills go south when you should be in your prime.

My point is there are two related components to the inconsistent player we see now: the physical, the mystery injury (my best guess: back problem), and a pretty deep psychological one.
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More than likely, the Matthews that we saw the first 8 years of his career is probably gone. We are left with a player who is still good in his own end and won't hurt you that way, but probably won't be able to drive offense the way that he used to.
 
rdowdall said:
More than likely, the Matthews that we saw the first 8 years of his career is probably gone. We are left with a player who is still good in his own end and won't hurt you that way, but probably won't be able to drive offense the way that he used to.
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We're probably left with a 40 goal guy that plays a solid 200 foot game. Not the end of the world. Now get 11 off his line.
 
GhostofPotvin29 said:
Except that the underlying numbers suggest his defensive game has fallen off a cliff this season as well.

See here:
https://twitter.com/x/status/2000314436385751286
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When a player goes from having a smart, perennial Selke candidate on his wing to two of the most defensively challenged wingers on the team: Domi & Nylander, I don't think it is unreasonable to expect some negative effect. Some of it probably relates to his injury but there's no way I can see going from Marner to Domi-Nylander and expect the same numbers defensively. They're polar opposite wingers defensively.
 
cw said:
When a player goes from having a smart, perennial Selke candidate on his wing to two of the most defensively challenged wingers on the team: Domi & Nylander, I don't think it is unreasonable to expect some negative effect. Some of it probably relates to his injury but there's no way I can see going from Marner to Domi-Nylander and expect the same numbers defensively. They're polar opposite wingers defensively.
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If you truly are a superstar you don't need a Selke calibre winger to look good on either side of the ice though. We've seen this time immemorial (Crosby played with who over the years?) His body is beat up and he simply can't do what he used to. Mark my words he's going the way of Mike Bossy and Wendel, except he costs $13.5M on the books and is playing closer to a $7-8M player.
 
Bender said:
If you truly are a superstar you don't need a Selke calibre winger to look good on either side of the ice though. We've seen this time immemorial (Crosby played with who over the years?) His body is beat up and he simply can't do what he used to. Mark my words he's going the way of Mike Bossy and Wendel, except he costs $13.5M on the books and is playing closer to a $7-8M player.
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I don't think it is that simple.
From great defensive forwards Bob Gainey to Bergeron or Barkov, regardless of injury history, if they have wingers like Domi and Nylander instead of Marner, their defensive stats are likely to suffer. Matthews is finding that out first hand this season. It is a team sport. Yes, Matthews is not the same player since returning from his injury but with wingers like that, he's probably having to do more defensively which curtails his offense.
When Domi finishes a shift, he'll mindlessly slap it down the ice and head off. When Marner finishes a shift, he'll assess the pace of the dump in to help his forecheckers and where he puts/banks the puck like a snooker player taking care of the cue ball. There's little risk assessment when Domi passes. With Marner, the wheels are turning and he'll back off to another option rather than risk the play coming back the other way. These are some of the 'little things' we hear players refer to. It makes a difference. It is not all black and white where Matthews injury is the only thing going on.
 
rdowdall said:
His defensive numbers are actually up this year compared to last, when he had Marner. Still nowhere near the year he had 69 goals.
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I was taking posters at their word. I know his +/- is near the top of the team. Haven't looked beyond that. But I'm not the only one to observe he seems to be making more of a defensive effort. His coach is on to Nylander and Domi ...
 
Matthews was generally able to produce without Marner during the regular season in prior years. I do not know about his defensive prowess without Marner in those years. The above stats show a significant decline in defensive ability last year with another significant drop in xGAR this year. The PK stat seems to make him look a bit more defensively responsible overall this year compared to last. I wonder if that is due to him not getting PK1 time vs. their top PP.

The linemate impact may be even greater now since Mathews is having a decreased ability to obtain and (retain?) the puck. His wingers need to drive the play more than they had to pre 2024-2025.
 
cw said:
I was taking posters at their word. I know his +/- is near the top of the team. Haven't looked beyond that. But I'm not the only one to observe he seems to be making more of a defensive effort. His coach is on to Nylander and Domi ...
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I deleted my post because I had it wrong. It was percentile, not rate, so he has actually dropped this year.
 
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