The Toronto Maple Leafs have somehow exceeded their incredibly high off-season expectations. With all the hype considering the biggest NHL free agent signing in years in John Tavares, and the excitement surrounding their young stud superstar Auston Matthews, who many believe has top three potential, Leafs fans could not wait for the season to start. Now, 8 games in, these players have done more than expected and have helped their team rocket to the top of the standings by scoring at a historic pace. Even as an irrational Leafs fan, I can realize that this pace is not something that can be sustainable. Matthews is currently on pace to score 102 goals so obviously that’s impossible, right?
With a player of his talent going into his third year at 21 years old, it is not crazy to expect a career year from him. Albeit the hot start, certain stats will be impossible to sustain for him and by accounting for regression, we can theoretically predict what to expect. As of now, Matthews has a shooting percentage of 45.5% which is over 10% higher than the single season shooting percentage record at 32.75% set by Charlie Simmer in 1982-1983. And also more than double his career average of 17.2%. Furthermore, his points per game through 8 games of the season is at 2 points per game which is also almost twice his career average of 1.09 per game. Now obviously his current pace will be nearly impossible to sustain, so what can we expect from Matthews for the rest of the year?
There are a couple of factors that are pointing to a career year for number 34. First of all, coach Mike Babcock has finally given him a leading role on Toronto’s number 1 powerplay unit; a unit that is leading the league in powerplay percentage at 47.4%. This has already led to an uptick in Matthews powerplay points per game. Right now, he is scoring 0.625 powerplay points per game compared to his career average of 0.236. This is illustrated as powerplay points per 82 games in the graph below.
A good prediction for an end of season powerplay points per game for Matthews is 0.4 because it is just above Tavares’s career average and just below Alexander Ovechkin’s career average, who are two comparable power play players for Matthews. Scoring 0.4 powerplay points per game will give him 33 powerplay points through 82 games, 10 points more than his career high of 21 in his rookie year. Another factor that gives Matthews a clear path to a career year is the off-season signing of John Tavares. With a talent like JT on a line with Mitch Marner, other teams will be forced to choose between the lesser of two evils to match up with their top defensive units leading to more favourable matchups for Matthews. Furthermore, this’ll allow him to get more high danger scoring chances (iHDCF). Currently he’s tied for 20th in the league with 11 iHDCF. With these factors, it is is reasonable to expect an uptick in Matthew’s stats including his shooting percentage and goals per game.
However, his shooting percentage of 45.5% will not hold. And he might not even be able to reach the highest shooting percentage of this century set by Mike Ribeiro in the 2007-2008 season of 25.23%. But hypothetically, let’s say Mathews is able to beat his career high and reach a shooting percentage of 20% at seasons end. His career average of shots per 82 games is 263. That means, he is theoretically able to reach 52 goals on the year, not accounting for injury. If we select 50 goals as the benchmark, Matthews will only need to score 40 more goals through the final 74 games of the year essentially requiring him to score an average of 0.54 goals per game. This is even lower than his career average of 0.56 goals per game. Knowing this, 50 goals is a very realistic possibility for Matthews and will put the 21 year old in the race for the Rocket Richard Trophy at years end along with the top scorers in the league. So yes, Matthews hot start will not be sustained, but all signs are pointing to a career year for the Leafs Nation’s golden boy.
Stats provided by Naturalstattrick.com, hockey-reference.com, nhl.com
By: Jake Wickware and Khashayar Akbari
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