Behind Maple Leafs’ Auston Matthews’ Recent Slump

One reason for his down-trending metrics could be that he’s getting the puck on the net much less recently than he’s grown accustomed to. In the 55 games prior to this rut, Matthews was averaging 11.23 shots per 60 minutes. Since then, he’s averaged 9.81. The shot attempts are there, having actually increased from 20.76 to 21.49; they’re just not hitting the net as frequently. He’s also attempting less off the rush, only posting 0.47 rush attempts per 60 in his last eight as opposed to 0.64 over the previous 55. As a result of him hitting the net less and attempting fewer rush shots, his individual expected goals (ixG) per 60 minutes has dropped from 1.24 pre-slump to 0.99, and his individual high-danger attempts (iHDCF) per 60 has dropped from 6.47 to 5.14.

One interesting thing of note is that his hits per 60 minutes have more than doubled during this stretch. In his first 55 games, he averaged 3.34 hits/60 and has upped it to 7.47 since. He’s also increased his giveaways/60 from 2.06 to 2.80. Speculatorily, it might be his frustration of not scoring getting the best of him and it’s translated to physicality and sloppiness with the puck.

Is Positive Puck Luck Regression Incoming?

Of course, there’s the luck factor — it’s both true that his underlying statistics have taken a nosedive and that he’s been unlucky with his shooting. In order to statistically define “puck luck,” one should look at a player’s PDO — a combination of shooting percentage (S%) and save percentage (SV%). On a league-wide scale, PDO will always equal exactly 1.00 — a shot either gets saved or ends up in a goal against. If a team or player has a PDO above 1.00, they should be considered “lucky,” and vice versa. A very low PDO is considered at or below 0.98, and, by that same standard, a very high PDO is considered at or above 1.02. Extremely skilled shooters, like Matthews, will consistently have a higher-than-average PDO by proxy of them simply being better at shooting the puck than the average NHLer.

Matthews’ PDO for this entire season is 1.019, which normally would be considered to be “very lucky,” but I would consider fair just because of the sheer amount of shooting talent he has. Over the last eight games, where he has only put two pucks past the goaltender, his PDO is .949, well below average, and well above the threshold where he should expect positive regression to the mean. Considering that his underlying statistics are still superb, even if they have gotten a little worse recently, and that his PDO is extremely low over the last stretch, I would anticipate a quick return to form for the future 70-goal scorer.