Yeah, I get the list was a projection. But at the end of the day, the argument came down to Matthews having to leap ahead of many other players that may or may not decline this season.
For example: Giroux, Kucherov, Malkin, MacKinnon, Hall, Kopitar, Ovi, Kessel, Marchand (and others) had better seasons than Matthews last year. For Matthews to jump into this top 5 consideration, it would depend on him making a further jump in his development (which is never a given for any player), and for a bunch of other players to decline from their prior years performance.
My whole point was that I knew it would happen, just a matter of when, and I personally thought his current placing was high (but surprises happen all of the time, it's really a guessing game). And for what it's worth, I live in Hamilton (just outside of Toronto), and the Leafs are my 2nd favourite team, and I watch a lot probably 40-60 leafs games a year if I can with my buddies, and I love Matthews, I'm just trying to be as objective as possible and not just expect every young player to take huge steps every year (For ex/ not many people are saying Barzal is gonna hit 95 points this year, simply because he's still a developing player).