Toronto Maple Leafs: The search for Auston Matthews’ scoring

In short, the Matthews line isn’t just doing an admirable job negating Barkov; they’re frankly the only line that is capable of doing so.

While the Tkachuk line has been utterly dominant analytically against the Lorentz–Laughton–Jarnkrok line (xGF% of 73.35%), they’ve done very little for the most part in terms of actual goals (Laughton has only given up one goal against the Tkachuk line).

This has meant that, through the first two games of the series, it was essentially a match-up between the Nylander and Marchand lines. While the Marchand line has been extremely scary this series, I believe Toronto and Berube are very comfortable with that matchup, and it’s that exact formula that netted Toronto a 2–0 series lead before coughing up the last two.

That’s why I believe the Matthews and Laughton lines deserve a ton of credit. Those two lines through the first four games have essentially negated the Barkov and Tkachuk lines at even strength for large chunks of games.

In many ways, Toronto’s first and third lines have paved the way for Nylander’s line to take the glory.

The Bad

The delicate balance Berube had crafted with his matchups folded partly in the third game. Maurice flipped Rodrigues and Verhaeghe on Barkov and Bennett’s wings, and it helped unlock Barkov. Barkov had an xGF% of 68.8% in Game 3… by far the best Barkov’s looked all series (until Game 4).

The concern amongst Leafs Nation has been the captain’s goal scoring. Matthews has no goals through four games, and with the team needing a big goal in a tight game, it’s only natural that these concerns have come to the forefront.

The concern is warranted in some aspects… despite the Matthews line playing quite well in Game 3, they were generally neutered offensively when playing against Barkov. And in Game 4, the line disappeared. Matthews and Marner are passengers on their own line, with Matthew Knies playing better than both of them.

Matthews’ xGF% when Barkov is on the ice this series? 40.19%.

Even when he’s away from Barkov, his xGF% of 48.03% is below par from what you would expect of a player of his calibre.

The reality is, however, that the Leafs’ current roster construction is a leading cause of the spotlight that’s been shone on Matthews since Game 3 ended.

The Bottom Six

The Leafs fourth line is a lightning strike offensive line, and I’ve liked them for the most part this series. Their effectiveness, especially against Florida’s fourth line, made Maurice’s switch to a heavier unit for Game 3 a prudent decision.

However, the offence comes inconsistently, and while Max Domi may be playing some of his best hockey as a Leaf the last two weeks, Bobby McMann has been invisible in the worst way and Pontus Holmberg looks like he’s trying to hit a Pinata blindfolded at Cinco De Mayo every time he gets the puck in a dangerous area of the ice. It’s not a line you can rely on for scoring.

There’s not much more you can ask of the Laughton line. They’re starting tons of shifts in the defensive zone, and despite being handed the unenviable task of shutting down the Bennett–Tkachuk duo, they’ve managed to do so through three games.

That’s not a line that was expected to score much to begin with, and it’s nearly impossible to expect that from them now with their deployment. That line is punching well above its weight class.

With the lack of depth offence, for Toronto to be consistently dangerous offensively, the weight rests on the shoulders of their star forwards and the top six.

History

I thought to myself, are Toronto’s concerns about Auston Matthews overblown? How does this current iteration of the Leafs compare to past champions? Have there been first-line centres in years past who have struggled to score, but the team was able to overcome it with its other players? Well, let’s take a deep dive.

The first column is the goal-scoring pace of every Stanley Cup champion’s first-line centre. The next column is how the other five players in the top-six performed (roughly the PPG of each player), and lastly, the average points per game of each bottom-six forward for the team that year. This encapsulates what the general scoring composition of a Stanley Cup champion looks like.

We have to keep in mind that Toronto has only played nine games, and usually, in a larger sample size, we see the law of averages play out and for production to equalize.

What is apparent, however, is that while Matthews isn’t scoring at the rate he should (especially given how amazing the supporting cast in his top-six has been), his goal production is somewhat close to the elite centres of the previous two Cup winners in Vegas and Florida as well as the Berube coached 2019 Blues.

What is clear to me is that if Toronto truly wants to make a sustainable deep run, there has to be something said about finding more juice in the bottom-six. Whether that’s shunting McMann off and bringing in Robertson just to shake up the lineup, or moving wingers around, Toronto has to find more offence in their last two lines.

Of the last six Stanley Cup Champions, none of them had a bottom-six PPG average of less than 0.25.

Toronto is at 0.185.

What’s next

To wrap things up, here are the findings that I’ve come up with:

1. Toronto isn’t wrong to expect more goal scoring from its franchise centre
2. NHL Teams in the past have won Cups with low scoring output from their first-line centre
3. Toronto needs the Nylander line to continue to dominate its matchups (Game 3 is an example of what can happen when they don’t)
4. If Matthews doesn’t find his scoring touch, the Leafs can ill afford for his line to let Barkov dominate the way it did in Game Three
5. The Domi line has to find a way to be consistently impactful offensively, especially since they see the most sheltered minutes

While concerns about Matthews’ goal scoring output are certainly warranted and worrisome (his current goal per game pace would be the lowest of any first line centre in the last 20 years among Cup champions), the rest of Toronto’s top-six is more than picking up the slack. For the Leafs to go on a deep, sustained run, however, it’s likely that either Matthews or the bottom-six will have to find that next gear offensively.