Can Maple Leafs' Auston Matthews get more assists than goals? - Sportsnet.ca
good article to break down Matthews' ability as a playmaker. Unsurprisingly, he's actually pretty good at it.
"Looking at the passing tendencies of only the 10 players to hit 31 5-vs-5 assists last season, we can see that overall, they passed the puck in the offensive zone more often than Matthews did, about 3.1 more passes per 20 minutes in total, but Matthews was actually slightly above average in the most important and dangerous pass type; passes to the slot."
"While Matthews passed the puck less often than his peer group, it should be noted that he preferred to make passes that were more difficult, focusing on penetrating the slot and keeping the puck low in the zone with north cycle passes. The top playmakers in the league almost universally like to defer to the point with south cycle passes quite often to make more space for themselves and spread out opposing coverage while Matthews seems to almost prefer to draw opponents towards him and overpower them with his unique combination of stickhandling and physicality."
the narrative that he's not an extremely good playmaker within spitting distance of elite is lazy and inaccurate