Player Discussion Auston Matthews Discussion

[JKG33]

I think Matthews can win a Cup being the best player.

I do not think Matthews can win the cup with this version of the Leafs.

The core 4 was a failure. They were a good team who could compete with the best, but not win when it mattered.

I highly doubt they move Matrhews or Nylander only for the fact they just reaigned.

If they move on from Marner and Tavares and go with a more balanced roster and find a #1 D then it's a different ball game.

As much as everyone uses Mack, he was on some stacked teams that missed the playoffs and didn't win shit.

Then Rantanen and Makar came on board and Mack is a 100 point player and looks the part.

Mack I consider the 2nd best player in the game, but he has a tonne of support. Makar was by far the best player in the Win series. Then Nichushkin and Lehkonen both went off.

Sure Mac has a much better supporting cast, but he's also a borderline psychopath when it comes to his compete level. From training with Sid in the offseason, pushing his diets on teammates, and just how angry of a player he looks on the ice. Not once has Matthews shown that kind of compete level or leadership. If he had id be more inclined to agree

 

[Jojalu]

Sure Mac has a much better supporting cast, but he's also a borderline psychopath when it comes to his compete level. From training with Sid in the offseason, pushing his diets on teammates, and just how angry of a player he looks on the ice. Not once has Matthews shown that kind of compete level or leadership. If he had id be more inclined to agree

Mack knows how to compete. The Leafs know how to try hard.

Until they figure out the difference, they will always fail.

 

[JKG33]

Mack knows how to compete. The Leafs know how to try hard.

Until they figure out the difference, they will always fail.

I couldn't have said it better myself

 

[Squiffy]

Let the class know what the injury is please, thank you.

It'll come out eventually, always does.

 

[Sypher04]

Sure Mac has a much better supporting cast, but he's also a borderline psychopath when it comes to his compete level. From training with Sid in the offseason, pushing his diets on teammates, and just how angry of a player he looks on the ice. Not once has Matthews shown that kind of compete level or leadership. If he had id be more inclined to agree

MacKinnon pushing his diet on his teammates is not leadership, it is being a control freak.

 

[WillNy29]

Sure Mac has a much better supporting cast, but he's also a borderline psychopath when it comes to his compete level. From training with Sid in the offseason, pushing his diets on teammates, and just how angry of a player he looks on the ice. Not once has Matthews shown that kind of compete level or leadership. If he had id be more inclined to agree

I am pretty sure Matthews trains with McDavid its a pretty common occurence for those 2 to link up in the summer to train.

it definitely helps in the playoffs having Cale Makar on the back end after you led your team to a top 5 pick the year before with your leadership and compete

 

[hamzarocks]

I am pretty sure Matthews trains with McDavid its a pretty common occurence for those 2 to link up in the summer to train.

it definitely helps in the playoffs having Cale Makar on the back end after you led your team to a top 5 pick the year before with your leadership and compete

He had 16 playoff pts in 13 games before Makar played in the NHL.

He dominated the NHL in 2018 and 2019 before Makar played for the Avs in the reg season

Mack has been there best player for 2 years now. Being the 2nd best player in hockey since 2022/2023 season began

Makar has only been better than Mackinnon in 1 year, which was the cup win (2022)

Besides that Mackinnon has been better and the Avs still lost (2019, 2020, 2021, and 2023)

Been pretty even this year in 2024 with both destroying the expected vezina winner and good defensive team in the Jets.

Mackinnon sees his play rise some how come playoffs despite such an incredible peak/prime of reg season hockey

 

[WillNy29]

He had 16 playoff pts in 13 games before Makar played in the NHL.

He dominated the NHL in 2018 and 2019 before Makar played for the Avs in the reg season

Mack has been there best player for 2 years now. Being the 2nd best player in hockey since 2022/2023 season began

Makar has only been better than Mackinnon in 1 year, which was the cup win (2022)

Besides that Mackinnon has been better and the Avs still lost (2019, 2020, 2021, and 2023)

Been pretty even this year in 2024 with both destroying the expected vezina winner and good defensive team in the Jets.

Mackinnon sees his play rise some how come playoffs despite such an incredible peak/prime of reg season hockey

cool beans; still didn't win a cup until the shiny defenseman he led them to got his team over the hump

 

[Gabriel426]

MacKinnon pushing his diet on his teammates is not leadership, it is being a control freak.

Yet he won a Cup and could win another One this year while our guys still believe they are close with yet another first round exits. lol

 

[NVious]

If Matthews was willing to waive and we could get the same/more value, he should be on the market, his playoff stats are:

1st to 32 g/60 season to post season
10g in last 25 elimination games (70 goal scorer turns into a 30 goal scorer)
0 goals in his 6 game 7s

I'm sorry but for 14 million this doesn't cut it, not even f***ing close.

 

[hamzarocks]

cool beans; still didn't win a cup until the shiny defenseman he led them to got his team over the hump

Matthews cant lead his team to win a round...

Its like Comparing Sidney Crosby and Tyler bozak come playoff time

Also 2017 the team was Matt Duchenes team, they dealt him that year and then it became Macks.

Mackinnon worked on the mental part of his game seeing a sports therapist. Once he worked through his mental block, he became the 2nd/3rd best player in the world for 7 years now

 

[Sypher04]

Yet he won a Cup and could win another One this year while our guys still believe they are close with yet another first round exits. lol

Not sure what that has to do with MacKinnon trying to force his teammates to eat how he thinks they should eat.

 

[hamzarocks]

Not sure what that has to do with MacKinnon trying to force his teammates to eat how he thinks they should eat.

Michael Jordan did stuff like this

Kobe bryant did stuff like this

The greatest winners often have stories like this where they want to control their teammates to try and replicate their own success and lead to team glory

Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesnt

Mackinnon has a cup now and his teammates got one with him. He is looking for #2 and his hard nosed attitude is still liked by former team Nikita Zadorov

 

[Sypher04]

Michael Jordan did stuff like this

Kobe bryant did stuff like this

The greatest winners often have stories like this where they want to control their teammates to try and replicate their own success and lead to team glory

Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesnt

Mackinnon has a cup now and his teammates got one with him. He is looking for #2 and his hard nosed attitude is still liked by former team Nikita Zadorov

Safe bet a lot of his teammates don’t
Not saying that means they don’t like Nate. But I can’t imagine many love being badgered by him

 

[Gabriel426]

Not sure what that has to do with MacKinnon trying to force his teammates to eat how he thinks they should eat.

Do with winning. Mack wants his teammates to do their absolute best in order to win and diet is one of them.
Personally, I don't agree with it but it does show how much Mack wants to win and how he also understand he can't do it alone and needs help from all his teammates.
Mack sets the tone and culture of the team. Thats something you want from the big guys like AM, MM, JT, WIllie and Reilly.

 

[WillNy29]

Matthews cant lead his team to win a round...

Its like Comparing Sidney Crosby and Tyler bozak come playoff time

I mean we just saw Matthews lead the team to win a round where he was arguably the best player on the ice for both teams last year; but whatever narratives make you happy. you got a hart, rocket and selke level center who has more good series than he does bad and that's the guy people choose to shit on its jokes.

Let's see-->Nathan Mackinnon loses first round in his rookie season misses playoffs for three years with his great competitveness. Never gets out of the second round for the next 5 years. Seems like 9 years of failure to me before winning the cup and then flaming out to an expansion team in round 1 again. Narratives are easy to spin.

seems like Cale Makar is the common denominator here

 

[hamzarocks]

Safe bet a lot of his teammates don’t

Thats fine those guys either shut up and buy in/try to win more championships by being the best player they can be

Or they get let go and the team keeps contending

The NHL isnt to build a happy go lucky environment. Its to build a team that can win

If the avs win again with Mackinnons approach to the game it just grows his legacy and legend

Mackinnons style of leadership is 1 style, not the only 1

Jokic like style from the NBA works too. But that style needs a player who can deliver individual efforts quite often/which is tough to do if your not maximizing your health.

 

[hamzarocks]

I mean we just saw Matthews lead the team to win a round where he was arguably the best player on the ice for both teams last year; but whatever narratives make you happy. you got a hart, rocket and selke level center who has more good series than he does bad and that's the guy people choose to shit on its jokes.

Let's see-->Nathan Mackinnon misses playoffs for three years with his great competitveness. Never gets out of the second round for the next 5 years. Seems like 8 years of failure to me before winning the cup and then flaming out to an expansion team in round 1 again. Narratives are easy to spin.

If losing in R2 is a failure then we are a worse failure in that case as we have only 1 of those

Mackinnon and the Avs have 4 2nd round series outside of their cup run

We just saw matthews put 4 pts in 5 games and not be able to takeover another series. Injuries can partially excuse this year, but we have seen him fail to do so in the past too (2019 vs Bruins, 2021 vs habs). He hasnt showj that next level ability to produce in the playoffs that Mackinnon has so far

Mackinnon regular season is more consistent generally than Matthews and more valuable.

Matthews has 2 years where he was a hart finalist/winner

Mackinnon has 3 and this will likely be his 4th (he comes 1st or 2nd to Kucherov this year)

Mackinnon play & production however from reg season doesnt have the insame variance that Matthews (and JT and Marner) have which is what makes him the better building block and long term asset

 

[River Meadow]

Seriously?

 

[WillNy29]

If losing in R2 is a failure then we are a worse failure in that case as we have only 1 of those

Mackinnon and the Avs have 4 2nd round series outside of their cup run

We just saw matthews put 4 pts in 5 games and not be able to takeover another series. Injuries can partially excuse this year, but we have seen him fail to do so in the past too (2019 vs Bruins, 2021 vs habs). He hasnt showj that next level ability to produce in the playoffs that Mackinnon has so far

Mackinnon regular season is more consistent generally than Matthews and more valuable.

Matthews has 2 years where he was a hart finalist/winner

Mackinnon has 3 and this will likely be his 4th (he comes 1st or 2nd to Kucherov this year)

Mackinnon play & production however from reg season doesnt have the insame variance that Matthews (and JT and Marner) have which is what makes him the better building block and long term asset

lmao imagine thinking being out in the second round is some kind of success; they're failures i dont care if its round 1 or 2 or getting swept in the conference final twice like another super star. Matthews is also 3 seasons younger than MacKinnon and could potentially be nominated for Hart this year as the only rocket winner to be nominated for selke in like 50 years.

2019 vs Bosotn Matthews had 5 goals in 7 games and the coach decided Marleau needed the critical minutes in game 7 when Matthews had been cooking the bruins that series not sure you have the right series here. Mackinnon himself has a couple of series where he was kind of average. Matthews had wrist surgery after the habs series but I agree he should have done more. After Tampa last year and game 2 this year he looked primed for a break out and then got some kind of Mono mixed with a knee injury so ill cut him the slack. I think this team is flawed and doesnt play with speed and when it did play with speed Matthews goal scoring caused playoff teams problems (4 goals in 6 games versus Washington, 5 goals in 7 versus Boston, 9 goals in 13 games against Tampa. He's proven he can score in the playoffs and not shy away from playing dirty and hard. I do want to see the team play with a structure that includes puck moving from the backend because we wont generate offense otherwise.

 

[Jojalu]

If losing in R2 is a failure then we are a worse failure in that case as we have only 1 of those

Mackinnon and the Avs have 4 2nd round series outside of their cup run

We just saw matthews put 4 pts in 5 games and not be able to takeover another series. Injuries can partially excuse this year, but we have seen him fail to do so in the past too (2019 vs Bruins, 2021 vs habs). He hasnt showj that next level ability to produce in the playoffs that Mackinnon has so far

Mackinnon regular season is more consistent generally than Matthews and more valuable.

Matthews has 2 years where he was a hart finalist/winner

Mackinnon has 3 and this will likely be his 4th (he comes 1st or 2nd to Kucherov this year)

Mackinnon play & production however from reg season doesnt have the insame variance that Matthews (and JT and Marner) have which is what makes him the better building block and long term asset

Mack has been great. His supporting cast is better than the Matthews and that is not up for debate.

If you swap Makar and Toews for Rielly and Boosh alone the story becomes way different.

But it's impossible to know for sure. It's very difficult to pit one player from a team against another player from a team and judge them on team success.

Also crazy to judge a player when less than half his career is over. The team has had very little success so far and he needs to shoulder some of the blame, but a lot can change in a year.

 

[HamiltonNHL]

Mack has been great.

He’s minimuM 2 AAV better than Matthews.

Matthews takes cap space that prevents better teammates

 

[Martin Skoula]

He’s minimuM 2 AAV better than Matthews.

Matthews takes cap space that prevents better teammates

We had 5mil sitting on the bench in Brodie. Nichushkin makes 600k more than Bertuzzi and he put up more points in 52 games while being more physical and much better defensively. Probably let’s start with the guys making middle class money giving us trailer park production and then go from there.

Nuke and Towes cost less than Bert + Brodie this year, they’re not even remotely in the same league as players.

 

[JKG33]

MacKinnon pushing his diet on his teammates is not leadership, it is being a control freak.

If you view that as a negative then I dunno what to say, especially in comparison to this group

I am pretty sure Matthews trains with McDavid its a pretty common occurence for those 2 to link up in the summer to train.

it definitely helps in the playoffs having Cale Makar on the back end after you led your team to a top 5 pick the year before with your leadership and compete

Have you heard about the insane competitiveness between Sid and Nate though? Mac's interview on Spittin Chicklets talked about it. I highly doubt McD and Matthews push each other the way those 2 do

 

[JKG33]

Safe bet a lot of his teammates don’t
Not saying that means they don’t like Nate. But I can’t imagine many love being badgered by him

If they don't like it, they can come to a team where losing is acceptable, like Toronto