Edmonton Article On Matthews

[ORRFForever]

NHL insider on Leafs sniper Auston Matthews: "He's not even close to (Leon) Draistaitl right now."

Click to read more...

 

[MyBudJT]

I don't even doubt Button is wrong.

Matthews could be playing a lot better than he has this first 10 games.... He's been floating wayyyy too much.

 

[Morbo]

Western Canada's obsession with Matthews is a little creepy.

 

[Ziggdiezan]

Western Canada's obsession with Matthews is a little creepy.

He is the dick to which they offer their best to measure up to

 

[Swedish Gretzky]

who can disagree? Matthews hasnt been lighting it up nor has the team found consistent success. This isnt a hot take at all.




If Mathews goes on a scoring spree and leads the NHL in goals , the narrative will change... as early as say in a couple of weeks.

Hes 22

He looks better and is better this year

 

[BertCorbeau]

who can disagree? Matthews hasnt been lighting it up nor has the team found consistent success. This isnt a hot take at all.




If Mathews goes on a scoring spree and leads the NHL in goals , the narrative will change... as early as say in a couple of weeks.

Hes 22

He looks better and is better this year

He’s second in goals so far this season....

 

[Blueboy]

I’m extremely disappointed with the complete lack of defensive intensity our top guys have. That’s this teams biggest problem, Matthews, Nylander and Marner had it all easy, they had the support, they got paid.

It really feels like they’re coasting.

 

[Craig Button]

It’s not hard to understand why Edmonton is obsessed with Matthews when he’s McDavid’s favourite player to watch.

 

[Kamiccolo]

He’s second in goals so far this season....

Right, and at one point that was enough. However, he has forced himself to be the 2nd highest paid center in the league, and has been compared to generational talent. And yet, how has his game grown since his rookie year?

Arguably, he is WORSE defensively than he was in his rookie year. He gives far less effort than he did. His goal scoring production has remained pretty steady in pace, his assist totals have stagnated.

Matthews is looking more and more like the next Stamkos instead of the next Malkin, and that is a bitter pill for a lot of fans to swallow.

I admit, he is still young, and maybe a coaching change or some further experience can change that, but as of now, both Matthews and the Leafs entire core has been underwhelming for a while now.

Should have beaten Boston last year. No excuse losing game 6 at home and game 7 on the road. And after pacing to miss the playoffs after Jan last year and getting embarrassed in the playoffs yet again, this season has been the same lack of effort and casual play away from the puck, having them once again just barely pacing to be a bubble team.

Matthews, Marner, Tavares, and the leadership have to be wayyyyyy better, or this is once again, an embarrassment for Leaf fans.

 

[saffronleaf]

Not sure why everyone wants to tear down Matthews or use him as the ultimate comparison.

Draisaitl is an excellent player.

But Matthews is looking great in his own right, and I'm excited to see how he does this season. If he's healthy, we could be in for a real treat.

Maybe if Edmonton starts competing for the playoffs, they'll be less petty. Right now, their version of the Stanley Cup is McDavid winning an Art Ross and hitting yet another lottery pick.

 

[saffronleaf]

Right, and at one point that was enough. However, he has forced himself to be the 2nd highest paid center in the league, and has been compared to generational talent. And yet, how has his game grown since his rookie year?

Arguably, he is WORSE defensively than he was in his rookie year. He gives far less effort than he did. His goal scoring production has remained pretty steady in pace, his assist totals have stagnated.

Matthews is looking more and more like the next Stamkos instead of the next Malkin, and that is a bitter pill for a lot of fans to swallow.

I admit, he is still young, and maybe a coaching change or some further experience can change that, but as of now, both Matthews and the Leafs entire core has been underwhelming for a while now.

Should have beaten Boston last year. No excuse losing game 6 at home and game 7 on the road. And after pacing to miss the playoffs after Jan last year and getting embarrassed in the playoffs yet again, this season has been the same lack of effort and casual play away from the puck, having them once again just barely pacing to be a bubble team.

Matthews, Marner, Tavares, and the leadership have to be wayyyyyy better, or this is once again, an embarrassment for Leaf fans.

That's a hot take. Matthews is looking beastly on many nights. Just gotta stay healthy and work on consistency.

 

[Kamiccolo]

That's a hot take. Matthews is looking beastly on many nights. Just gotta stay healthy and work on consistency.

Matthews has a dominant game once every 3 or 4 games if we are lucky. Scoring 2 goals is not dominant to me. I mean dominant away from the puck and driving possession.

Most of the time he looks happy to be out for a skate unless he has a chance to score a goal.

 

[TheBigFour]

Edmonton media/ oiler fans are obsessed with Matthews. Always have been. This is nothing new.
Also i guess ORRforever is back to bashing Matthews again.
Remember Drasaitl is also two years years older than Matthews.

 

[saffronleaf]

Edmonton media/ oiler fans are obsessed with Matthews. Always have been. This is nothing new.
Also i guess ORRforever is back to bashing Matthews again.
Remember Drasaitl is also two years years older than Matthews.

And in his 50g season he mostly played with McDavid.

Lol can you imagine Matthews playing with McDavid most of the season???

 

[Craig Button]

And in his 50g season he mostly played with McDavid.

Lol can you imagine Matthews playing with McDavid most of the season???

It would look like this every 4-5 minutes



and like this every 2-3 minutes

 

[hamzarocks]

Draisaitl is probably slight better as of right now. If matthews breaks out he will overtake him. He needs to up his production and not allow as many scoring chances when hes in the ice

 

[KuleminFan41]

Draisaitl is a very good player, but he also is glued to McDavid's wing . I'm not saying he can't play away from McDavid, but its not as if Matthews has played with an elite level talent on his line either. I mean, how would Draisaitl fair if he was centreing a line with Hyman as one of his wings? He has the luxury of McDavid who can score 40 while Matthews has had to play with Marleau, Johnsson, Kapanen,Hyman and Nylander, who are good players but not exactly the greatest goal scoring threat either.

In short, Matthews is better as he's done more with less

 

[Menzinger]

Draisaitl is a great player -but its dumb things like this which illustrate how context of production always needs to be looked at. Linemates, icetime, pp unit lusage t ect.

If player X has more opportunities to score than player Y due to their favorable deployment, then the raw point totals will reflect that

 

[Isaac Nootin]

Imagine how good Matthews would look on McDavids wing instead of carrying/driving his own line. Something Draisaitl has failed to do, year after year.

 

[Tall Morty]

Matthews to Edmonton:

 

[Sypher04]

I'll admit up front, I didn't read the article. In fact, I didn't even open it. Not worth the time as far as I'm concerned. I can only assume the premise is that Draisaitl is better than Matthews because of their assist disparity predominantly over the last year and beginning of this one. To which, I'd say, that's all well and good, but have you looked at linemates at all? While I do think Matthews can and needs to distribute better, I have never liked the fit of either of Johnsson or Kapanen with him stylistically, and Nylander, as much as I love the guy, hasn't fared so well in shooting percentage over the past calendar year. He's off to a better start this year, but he's still imo taking a lot of less than great shots. Compounding matters would be that Matthews is often relegated to trigger man on the powerplay, which I'm not even saying is wrong given that he's arguably the best shooter in the NHL, but it does limit his potential to rack up apples while sharing the ice with the players on this team that one could truly say are closest to his level: Rielly, Marner, and Tavares.

 

[CantLoseWithMatthews]

Marner and McDavid fanboys have a really weird issue with Matthews. Especially Marner fanboys since he's on the same damn team

 

[Rogue Leader]

I don't really care about all the **** they write.
Obviously, it's a click bait article. Leon and Matthews are so different that they can't even be compared.
It's like a Toronto writer posting that Matthews is better than Tarasenko.
What I am actually concerned is Matthews injury history and his ability to stay healthy.
I don't know if it's just me, but every single time he get's hit I cringe and hope he is OK.
With his size this should be a total non-factor, but there is a big chance he won't be able to live up to his potential due to injuries. I actually think that is a main point of why he has stopped checking and going in corners with passion - as before. I am very worried about his health and he is in his prime ffs.

 

[ULF_55]

Can you imagine Tavares and Draisaitl together?

Might score 100 goals between them.

 

[thewave]

Can you imagine Tavares and Draisaitl together?

Might score 100 goals between them.

Nah, two scorers together always ends up with diminishing returns. That's the whole reason why Bowman and others use Grinder with a stable two way star C and a legit goal scoring sniper.