The Toronto Maple Leafs are 0–2 since the Olympics ended, being outplayed, outchanced, and ultimately outscored by a 9–3 mark against the two Florida teams. The team looked largely dreadful, but especially poor has been Auston Matthews. After winning a heartbreaking gold medal over Canada and visiting the American president earlier in the week, Matthews has been especially bad.
What do the numbers show of Auston Matthews’ performance post-Olympics
While he continues his abysmal scoring performance, with just one goal in his last 10 games (against the Buffalo Sabres, no less), Matthews’ underlying numbers have been horrendous. In the five games before the Olympics, Matthews averaged 6.6 shot attempts per game in all situations, per Natural Stat Trick. Over the last two, he’s down to just 3.0. A massive drop off.
His scoring chances are also down, with three total in his last two games in all situations, but averaging over five per game in his five previous games. Now, he did have 11 in the game against the Vancouver Canucks, but averaged five and six against Seattle and Buffalo, respectively.
Matthews did not record a single high-danger chance at all against Florida and just one against Tampa, but recorded 13 in the five games before that. He’s struggled mightily since coming back.
At 5v5, Matthews has been even worse. He had just five shot attempts in his last two games, with only three hitting the net. He had just one scoring chance in each game and only one high-danger chance in the two combined games.
What does this mean for the Leafs?
While the team alongside him hasn’t been great, you look to your captain to get you out of a funk. Matthews hasn’t elevated his game when the team needed him most, if anything, lowering the standards
Last night, the two Leafs that actually showed that they cared were Nick Robertson and Matthew Knies. They each did more in that one game than Matthews did in his last two.
Whether you call it a curse for going to the White House, blame it on jetlag, or on a post-Olympic hangover, he simply has not been good at all since coming back from Milan. The team needs every point they can get if they want to make the playoffs, but he looks like he’s ready to golf already.
It’s time to put Matthews on the milk carton. He’s been missing since visiting Donald Trump.
It would be nice if the Leafs could have a REAL CANADIAN leader!!! The team is only as good as its leaders and so they need to get rid of these non-Canadian bums. Real leaders include Sittler, Gilmour, McDonald, Clark, all real Canadians. Matthews got his Gold for his U.S. team. He doesn’t care about a Canadian team but he’s happy to collect huge money from them.