Haven't mined the entire thread, but for my money, Matthews has a Bossy vibe to him. The release and the IQ demonstrate elite focus and skill. Sakic also comes to mind.
Now the dilemma comes in Matthews size and game management.
I don't speak for all Leafs fans, but I think to a person, we would like to see Matthews fit that classical Leafs primary center role in being physically dominant along with the production. Kopitar seems a decent comparison here? We know he's not going to physical like Lindros or Lemieux or even Sundin, but would like to see a little more resiliency in his play. We'd like to see it because we have in limited, short bursts.
The regular season stuff is nice. It's fantastic actually. Especially as we calculate all-time possibilities for the future. But I hope it isn't lost on those looking in on Toronto that we want Matthews' personal success over Cup glory.
Everything our fanbase does, is done in disproportionate measure: Gloat, complain, inspect, distort...Moreover in our enthusiasm, when for the first time in our franchise, our #1 overall pick (an exception) is a league leading player in any category (exception), award-winning (exception) and history-making (as exceptional as they come in Toronto).
Gilmour and Sundin and players like Mogilny to a lesser extent, of truly world-class talent have been few and far between...But we didn't draft them. Of those we drafted: Sittler, Salming, Clark, Damphousse to name a few, we had no such luck and good as they were, they weren't in annual comparative discussions with respect to any of the paragraph above's categories.
In perspective, very few players in Toronto score 100 points. How good has Matthews' been this season? The OG Leafs fans will get this quickly: William Nylander has 96 points and three games to play and his situation is quiet where in year's past, it would have been nigh-parade route worthy.
Unapologetically happy with what Matthews has turned into...Really, for the first time in our club's history.
Don't look now, but Matthews was far more physical in last year's playoffs than Mats ever was.
The last time before Toronto had a physically imposing 1st line centre was certainly before my time, so at least 30+ years now.
Then again, there have only been a handful of them in the league in that period of time.
Matthews plays a rather heavy physical game, not by delivering thundering hits, but by going to the dirty areas and separating the defenders and/or forecheckers from the puck, by going into the slot for scoring chances, and by generally never playing a perimeter game.
This is a great way to put it. To the haters: for all you know Matthews will play for your team one day. What then?
Don't worry.
When Phil was a Leaf, he was the most overrated player in the league. The moment he left and made the Star Wars spoof vid for Pitt, he was instantly the lovable Ironman who everyone enjoyed having around.
He went from the cancer in the room wh9 poisoned all his teams and would never amount to anything, to back to back champion and had a large contingency outraged he was overlooked for the Conn Smythe.
The same would happen in a hypothetical world where Auston leaves Toronto.
So I guess the talk of him not being a generational player can stop. Literally most goals in a generation. If Ovechkin is one so is Matthews.
McDavid is generational.
I still don't think Matthews fits that billing.
He is a goal scoring phenom, but i wouldnt go as far as generational.
That's McDavid, Mario, Wayne, and Orr.
Nobody else fits the bill in that sense.
Sid is an overall better player than Connor, but he is too well rounded and not enough of an outlier offensively to fall into that category, I don't think.
Unlikely. How many more than 1487 games do you really think he would have played?
Lemieux played 572 less games than Gretzky did and only trailed him by about 200 goals.
From the years of 84/85 to 96/97 when Mario was putting up big numbers and before his retirement due to health for 3 entire years he missed 24% of the games (12 years)
From 79/80 to 91/92, 13 seasons, Gretzky missed only 6% and the seasons that came after only furthers the divide
Lemieux is imo the best goalscorer to ever play the game
Mario is the most gifted player of all time, and the greatest goal scorer.
I don't know if it's particularly outrageous to state these 2 opinions as facts.
Wayne is the greatest player, but he relied on his ability to manipulate the game and players into doing his bidding rather doing it himself like Mario did.
Don't see the Kopitar comparison at all, dude was an absolute menace on the forechecks and physicality in a way Matthew's will never be. I still remember those LA games where Kopitar absolutely dominated Kucherov, I've never seen a player frustrate him to that degree. The only thing they really have in comparison is their size.
You're wrong and should feel bad about being so confident despite having such an ill informed opinion.
