Auston Matthews vs Sasha Barkov

[FlaPanthers11]

Neither is his considerably low shooting percentage on the powerplay. Wonder why that isn't brought up at all.

Because we are only allowed to use ES/60 stats to make him seem like the next great goal scorer of all time.

 

[The Kessel Run]

As long as you're comfortable taking the bet that no one has ever won. I guess a 16 seed did just beat a 1 for the first time...

Wait I just took a bet? I thought I answered your question. Is this like when a man in a suit passes you a scratch coupon and you find out you’ve signed up for a credit card?

 

[Regal]

Neither is his considerably low shooting percentage on the powerplay. Wonder why that isn't brought up at all.

Because it's always his even strength numbers that are brought up to put him ahead of others players and given that it's a much larger percentage of his points, his on-ice shooting is going to have a larger effect on his totals. Lower PP time and on-ice shooting on the PP are certainly factors in lowering his point totals but it's mostly balanced by the even strength inflation. Both players should be looked at as roughly PPG players at their current levels in similar environments.

 

[McDavidCrushedLarkin]

This is Barkov all day every day.

 

[FlaPanthers11]

Wait I just took a bet? I thought I answered your question. Is this like when a man in a suit passes you a scratch coupon and you find out you’ve signed up for a credit card?

If you call what you said an answer, I'd call it a weak one. It seemed to me as though you are planning (betting) on his (unsustainable) shooting percentage to continue to be the best the league has seen in a decade. If you could trouble yourself for an argument longer than 15 words explaining why that would be the case then I'd gladly discontinue that new credit card of yours.

 

[The Kessel Run]

Thanks.

I can’t see the future and am not claiming that Matthews will continue to shoot at that pace, but I’m not overly shocked that he is. He has a world class release and usually shoots from very dangerous areas. Were you suggesting that he’s lucked his way through his first two seasons? Or do you feel that all shooters are born equal. I guess I’m just not sure what you were trying to argue.

Let me just check my word count....yup over 15. Submit reply!

 

[FlaPanthers11]

Thanks.

I can’t see the future and am not claiming that Matthews will continue to shoot at that pace, but I’m not overly shocked that he is. He has a world class release and usually shoots from very dangerous areas. Were you suggesting that he’s lucked his way through his first two seasons? Or do you feel that all shooters are born equal. I guess I’m just not sure what you were trying to argue.

Let me just check my word count....yup over 15. Submit reply!

I was backing up Regal's post (185) by adding the extra fact that he has the highest on ice shooting % since 2009-2010. No matter how good his release is (excellent) or where his shots come from (excellent) he is going to regress in on ice shooting %. It will happen. What anyone wants to do with this information and how they want to twist it is their call.

 

[Lovedemfanboys]

You seem to be forgetting that last season we had Patrik Laine supporters say if he was never injured it was guaranteed he would have scored in those games he missed and won the Calder instead of Matthews.

When talking about Matthews pace this season all everyone has said what his numbers would be and nothing more than that. So basically we never made any guarantees he would have scored in the games he missed.

I don't know why I even bother with you and your hypocrisy. I've read that AM would've won Rocket if he hadn't injured. Please do tell, how is that statement different from Laine possible winning the Calder?

 

[Lemontree]

I was backing up Regal's post (185) by adding the extra fact that he has the highest on ice shooting % since 2009-2010. No matter how good his release is (excellent) or where his shots come from (excellent) he is going to regress in on ice shooting %. It will happen. What anyone wants to do with this information and how they want to twist it is their call.

I’m not going to argue if Matthews shooting percentage will dip, remain the same or increase however if your basis of why it will drop is because no one has had a higher shooting percentage in 8 seasons then it is a pretty foolish premise.

 

[FlaPanthers11]

I’m not going to argue if Matthews shooting percentage will dip, remain the same or increase however if your basis of why it will drop is because no one has had a higher shooting percentage in 8 seasons then it is a pretty foolish premise.

Believe me, it's not. It's a statistical outlier. Regression to the mean is a real thing. We have a huge number of data points and his stands alone. If it doesn't happen in thousands of attempts, it's not a repeatable feat.

 

[Lemontree]

Believe me, it's not. It's a statistical outlier. Regression to the mean is a real thing. We have a huge number of data points and his stands alone. If it doesn't happen in thousands of attempts, it's not a repeatable feat.

It’s weird, looking at shooting percentage for this season AM is around the likes of Grabner, Haula, Fast, Thornton.

Excluding guys with less than 20 games played he sits around 25th highest shooting percentage this season. How is Matthews the statistical outlier? W. Karlsson is your outlier.

 

[Regal]

It’s weird, looking at shooting percentage for this season AM is around the likes of Grabner, Haula, Fast, Thornton.

Excluding guys with less than 20 games played he sits around 25th highest shooting percentage this season. How is Matthews the statistical outlier? W. Karlsson is your outlier.

The talk isn't about shooting percentage, it's about on-ice shooting percentage: the percentage of shots that go in when the player is on the ice. Players have much less control over it than their individual shooting percentage, and is typically a sign of "puck luck" that leads to more points.

Matthews also does have a very high individual shooting percentage at 5v5 though (which contributes to his on-ice percentage) of 19.2%, which is 8th best in the league and also likely to come down. This means his shooting percentage outside of 5v5 is lower though, when typically it should be higher. His overall 17.5% is a little high, but not too much beyond whats reasonable for a shooter like him. Overall, his 5v5 numbers are likely to go down and his PP numbers go up. The issue is, some people want to point to his 5v5 numbers and his lack of PP time and claim he'd be a much higher scorer if he was given the PP time of other top scorers. However, what the numbers suggest is that his 5v5 totals will likely go down over time so that while more PP time should help, were not likely to see the dramatic difference in his totals/pace some are suggesting.

 

[Lemontree]

The talk isn't about shooting percentage, it's about on-ice shooting percentage: the percentage of shots that go in when the player is on the ice

Why would those numbers be relevant? Legit question on my part, I’m not making the connection of how that advanced stat would give any indication of one players impact to the game.

 

[Regal]

Why would those numbers be relevant? Legit question on my part, I’m not making the connection of how that advanced stat would give any indication of one players impact to the game.

I wrote more above, but in general, the more goals a player is on the ice for, the more likely he's going to get a point on those goals, and with dramatic differences, this can often lead to what's seen as career seasons/down years for players. In general, players have a lot less control over their on-ice shooting percentage, because it's more dependant on the 4 other skaters on the ice, as well as the performance of their opponent, and while elite players tend to be higher than average, it's shown to not be sustainable at extreme highs. Currently Matthews is at almost 13%, whereas the league average is around 7-8. Crosby for example, having a poor year by his standards is at 6.1%, and if you look at spike years for a number of players, it almost always coincides with a high on-ice shooting percentage. It's currently the case with MacKinnon, was the case with Kane in his Art Ross year and was the case with the Sedin's in their Art Ross wins.

Now, that's not necessarily to say that it's pure "luck" driven. I tend to believe it's a sign of the player and his line playing extremely well. You're bound to have years where things just click with you and your teammates and you're "feeling it" and everything is going in. And some years you seem to not be on the same page and nothing seems to be working. As such, it wouldn't necessarily be wrong to say that Matthews has been better than Barkov at 5v5 this year. He's produced those points and been on the ice for those goals and a very high GF%. But they do point to him not being able to maintain that production, and falling back to around where Barkov has been this year going forward, unless he and/or his line improves.

 

[Snowsii]

Rebel without a cause.

Sure.. Let's count Matthews pace for this season.. Are we going to ignore Barkovs paces for 15-16 (59p in 66g, pace for ~73p in 82g)
and 16-17 (52p in 61g, pace for ~70p in 82g) ?

 

[Mickey Marner]

If you remove Matthews' 5v5 shots, last season his linemates shot 4.5%, this year 10.5%, average between both seasons is 8%. Or almost exactly league average. Matthews has scored 54 of the 106 5v5 goals he's been on the ice for at a 15.8 shooting percentage, which greatly inflates his on-ice shooting percentage.

 

[Regal]

If you remove Matthews' 5v5 shots, last season his linemates shot 4.5%, this year 10.5%, average between both seasons is 8%. Or almost exactly league average. Matthews has scored 54 of the 106 5v5 goals he's been on the ice for at a 15.8 shooting percentage, which greatly inflates his on-ice shooting percentage.

Are you arguing that his on-ice shooting is high purely because of his own prevalence as a shooter? Because that might make sense if we're combining the past two seasons, but the discussion has been about this one, where, as you say, his linemates are shooting above average and he himself is shooting over 19%. Both are generally unsustainable.

If we combine the two seasons to make their on-ice percentages more normalized, Matthews ends up with a 2.45 P/60 and Barkov with a 2.22 P/60. So while Matthews is better, the difference isn't large.

Matthews is also the better goalscorer and relies less on second assists, though while last year you could argue he was unlucky there, it seems by now his game might not be conducive to getting them, and I'm not sure they hold much less value when coking from the best player on a line who generally carries the play. Still, Matthews is probably better offensively by more than I originally thought. He's not Barkov defensively, but also good there, so overall I don't see how it's not very close.

 

[Sasso09]

Barkov..... but super super close.

I might say Matthews tomorrow

 

[bionic]

All this talk of Matthews "high" shooting percentage and how for sure it's going to come down. Well. Ok. I can play that game to. His Power play on ice percentage is very low, no way that stays like that. So in the end one goes down the other goes up and it all evens out in the end. So at the end of the day Matthews is still better then Barkov.

 

[FinlandPanther]

This little pissing contest on here is so stupid. Just appreciate two elite talents without talking garbage. These both will be head to head a lot.

 

[FinlandPanther]

All this talk of Matthews "high" shooting percentage and how for sure it's going to come down. Well. Ok. I can play that game to. His Power play on ice percentage is very low, no way that stays like that. So in the end one goes down the other goes up and it all evens out in the end. So at the end of the day Matthews is still better then Barkov.

This doesn’t even prove your point

 

[LeafGrief]

Some really good posts focusing on the stats in here. Nice to see people making their points coherently and backing them up with evidence. Makes for far better reading than the typical bickering. Keep up the good discussion!

 

[mammothCacti]

You think Matthews can ink a 6x6 million dollar deal using Barkov as a comparable?

 

[bionic]

This doesn’t even prove your point

I know, I'm just tired of these stupid comparison threads and was trying to lighten it up with a "my guys better then you guy" comment.
End of the day I like Matthews and I'm sure the other side likes Barkov. Then there's the people that like anything against the Leafs who have to throw in there two cents....lol

 

[Leafer34]

How many 40 goal seasons does barkov have?