Realistically, Which Calibre Of Centre Will Matthews Become?

[Sojourn]

No we are supposed to tell the whole story. Your rules. Saying "the team is garbage" in comparison is flat out false and a lie by none other than you, the apparent champion of truth and detestor of partial facts.

Well, it's easy to make that claim when you're putting words into my mouth, isn't it?

I said Crosby and Ovechkin started their season on worse teams, as evidenced by the results. You're trying to make this about what could have been, but not what actually was. In other words, this isn't about truth to you, but a hypothetical. Yes, Pittsburgh could have been better. Toronto also could have been worse. If Toronto had dealt with the level of injuries that Pittsburgh did that season, there is little doubt Toronto would have missed the playoffs entirely.

If you want to tell the whole truth, then tell the whole truth. You failed to do that in your counter argument. So you don't get to criticize me for summarizing that Pittsburgh was a worse team. If you wanted me to elaborate on the circumstances, fine, I'm happy to do so, but the end result was the same. What could have been is irrelevant to what was.

 

[Voodoo Child]

Well, it's easy to make that claim when you're putting words into my mouth, isn't it?

I said Crosby and Ovechkin started their season on worse teams, as evidenced by the results. You're trying to make this about what could have been, but not what actually was. In other words, this isn't about truth to you, but a hypothetical. Yes, Pittsburgh could have been better. Toronto also could have been worse. If Toronto had dealt with the level of injuries that Pittsburgh did that season, there is little doubt Toronto would have missed the playoffs entirely.

If you want to tell the whole truth, then tell the whole truth. You failed to do that in your counter argument. So you don't get to criticize me for summarizing that Pittsburgh was a worse team. If you wanted me to elaborate on the circumstances, fine, I'm happy to do so, but the end result was the same. What could have been is irrelevant to what was.

Hmm...

 

[Sojourn]

I mean, I get what you're saying because it puts context into a very subjective subject, but the issue some people are having is that Kopitar has never had a season like last year. Neither did MacKinnon -- does this mean by virtue of having more points that MacKinnon is better than Kopitar? I'd argue the opposite is true, but MacKinnon has always had the talent and skill to get to the level he played at last season. Crosby had less points than Kopitar last season, and yet I think it's unanimously agreed that Crosby is a vastly superior player than Kopitar.

There's little doubt that Kopitar is a franchise centre. When his career is over, he's going straight to the Hockey Hall of Fame. He's had a consistently good ~70 points per season career with Grade A defensive play. He's just that good. But when someone says, "Well, I think Matthews is a much better player," they are likely referring to his ability to take over a game and control a game in ways Kopitar can't. I think the wording from some posters hasn't been very good and they need to be a little more judicious about how they contextualize their position.

The problem here is that Kopitar has over 900 games under his belt. Matthews still hasn't hit 150. When someone says that Kopitar had a better season than Matthews, that's half of Matthews' NHL career so far. When you say MacKinnon had a better season than Crosby, or Kopitar, you're talking about a much, much smaller percentage. Kopitar and Crosby have much bigger bodies of work that are arguments for them over MacKinnon.

We recently had a discussion about whether MacKinnon was a top 3-5 player in the NHL. The majority of the responses seemed to suggest MacKinnon needs to continue to show what he did last season for him to really deserve that spot. The difference here is that MacKinnon actually showed that. Matthews has not. Any argument of potential with Matthews still applies to MacKinnon. Let's not forget just how young MacKinnon is. If Matthews had put up a season like MacKinnon, I think some Toronto fans would immediately want to place him into the top 3, and they'd accuse us of hating him or the Leafs because we weren't ready yet... despite the fact we just did the same thing with MacKinnon. Hell, we were like 10 games in last season, and there were arguments that Matthews was laying claim to the title of best. 10 games in. It's hard to have an objective discussion about Matthews, because it's an argument of potential, and when you say he's not there yet, you get accused of being a hater.

 

[Sojourn]

Hmm...

They made the playoffs by 1 point, with two teams finishing just behind them with 94 points. Don't kid yourself here. There is strong evidence that supports that.

 

[Brobust]

How can you say this with a straight face? Top 3 offensively in the league when even if you use "pace" for games missed last year the will still not top 5 in points? He would not even be top 10.

His p/60, p1/60, and g/60 are all top 3.

 

[Sojourn]

There it is. per 60. Woo.

 

[lomiller1]

His p/60, p1/60, and g/60 are all top 3.

Matthews sh% and oish% were also unrealistically high. There is a much better case for Matthews having had a one-off, abnormally high scoring year than there is for Kopitar.

 

[Lshap]

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