Do you consider Auston Matthews a Top-5 Center heading into next year?

[Ace of Hades]

Matthews is ahead of McDavid's career playoff numbers, but I don't think anyone puts much stock into that

Pretty sure Matthews has played more games in the playoffs than EP and McDavid have.

 

[Syckle78]

I never thought I would type these words but...Matthews is under rated on here.

 

[AvroArrow]

I don't think he is better than 3 of the following centers:

Connor McDavid
Patrice Bergeron
Sean Couturier
Elias Pettersson
Nathan MacKinnon
Ryan O'Reilly
Sidney Crosby

These are the only guys that might be better. At this point in his career i don't think Crosby is the better player but i wouldn't completely be against that suggestion either.

Definitely better than the non-bolded players.

 

[NyQuil]

These are the only guys that might be better. At this point in his career i don't think Crosby is the better player but i wouldn't completely be against that suggestion either.

Definitely better than the non-bolded players.

"Better" is a tough term, because I think you have to factor in experience, toughness, leadership, the kinds of things that come with years in the league and matter in the playoffs.

I might agree that he's more "talented" than some of those guys, but "better" than Bergeron or ROR?

Hrmm, not sure I'd agree.

 

[The Winter Soldier]

Whatever amount of points Pettersson gets get an asterisk because he had 4 points against Minnesota in the qualifying round and those should not have counted as playoff stats for 2020.

Then why are you ignoring Petterson having 12 points in 8 games in these playoffs if you want to selectively clip out the playoff qualifier rd. This is just 1 point behind Matthews 13 points in his career and it took him 20 games to do it. Why not just give Petterson the credit that he deserves?

 

[Merrrlin]

"Better" is a tough term, because I think you have to factor in experience, toughness, leadership, the kinds of things that come with years in the league and matter in the playoffs.

I might agree that he's more "talented" than some of those guys, but "better" than Bergeron or ROR?

Hrmm, not sure I'd agree.

Well, you are starting a team from scratch, who do you pick?
Or you have a team that you want to win the cup with ASAP, who do you pick?

I go Matthews in both situations, so that's why I consider him "better".

 

[ScaredStreit]

Bergeron , as great as he is, has spent considerable time in the press box injured in the last 3 years so no you can't include him.

The 2 M's sure but Crosby better than Matthews going into next season is an iffy proposition with father time and Austin is really becoming a more complete impact player as well.

Over the past 3 seasons Matthews has played 200 games and Bergeron has played 190. If your only argument for Matthews being better is that he played 3 more games per season than Bergeron...that's a pretty poor argument.

Also, the question isn't who's the healthier player but the better player. Bergeron is a better player than Matthews.

Similarly to Crosby yes next season Matthews MIGHT be better than Crosby...but he's currently not. Over Crosby's last 3 seasons he's played 202 games (just two more than Matthews) and scored 20 more points. He's also better than Matthews defensively.

We can play what if's and maybe's all we want...but at the end of the day as of this moment in time Crosby and Bergeron are both better players than Matthews is. I'm not bashing Matthews-I think he's in the top 10 centers. I even said he might be #5 with a few guys you could argue over him (like Eichel). But to suggest he's better than Crosby or Bergeron? Eh I don't know who you're a fan of but if I had to guess I'd probably say Leafs because that conclusion makes no sense to me unless there's an inherent bias involved.

 

[NyQuil]

Well, you are starting a team from scratch, who do you pick?
Or you have a team that you want to win the cup with ASAP, who do you pick?

I go Matthews in both situations, so that's why I consider him "better".

If I wanted to win a Cup this playoff I would pick ROR and Bergeron over Matthews.

 

[Merrrlin]

If I wanted to win a Cup this playoff I would pick ROR and Bergeron over Matthews.

Then I would say that you consider them to be "better", they make you more likely to win. I disagree, but a lot of these guys are so close, I don't see the point in arguing.

 

[Merrrlin]

Eh I don't know who you're a fan of but if I had to guess I'd probably say Leafs because that conclusion makes no sense to me unless there's an inherent bias involved.

I don't really see it as a bias opinion - the kid was on pace for 55g/90+ points on a team that couldn't even make the playoffs.

Sometimes I wish he wasn't a Leaf, so that every aspect of his career wasn't seen through the "bias" lens one way or the other. It's exhausting to hear it over and over again.

 

[ScaredStreit]

I don't really see it as a bias opinion - the kid was on pace for 55g/90+ points on a team that couldn't even make the playoffs.

Sometimes I wish he wasn't a Leaf, so that every aspect of his career wasn't seen through the "bias" lens one way or the other. It's exhausting to hear it over and over again.

Your argument for Matthews being better than Matthews was that he plays 3 more games a year...and argument for him being better than Crosby was that one day he might be better than Crosby...it's not like you have decent arguments here tbh.

 

[Merrrlin]

Your argument for Matthews being better than Matthews was that he plays 3 more games a year...and argument for him being better than Crosby was that one day he might be better than Crosby...it's not like you have decent arguments here tbh.

What? Am I having a stroke, because none of this makes sense to me. Did you mean to quote me?

 

[ScaredStreit]

What? Am I having a stroke, because none of this makes sense to me. Did you mean to quote me?

I did not LMAO my bad. Clearly one cup of coffee wasn't enough for me this morning.

 

[Fatass]

I don't really see it as a bias opinion - the kid was on pace for 55g/90+ points on a team that couldn't even make the playoffs.

Sometimes I wish he wasn't a Leaf, so that every aspect of his career wasn't seen through the "bias" lens one way or the other. It's exhausting to hear it over and over again.

I remember Marc Crawford, after coaching a very young Matthews in Europe, saying AM is a player that leads teams to championships. Matthews is great in TO, but Dubas needs to do a better job building around him.

 

[Gains]

Only McDavid and MacKinnon are definitely better IMO.

 

[Merrrlin]

I remember Marc Crawford, after coaching a very young Matthews in Europe, saying AM is a player that leads teams to championships. Matthews is great in TO, but Dubas needs to do a better job building around him.

That we agree on. This is a big year for me when comes to deciding on how I feel about Dubas. He no longer has the lingering issues from past regimes. They left him with few prospects, but other GMs have to overcome bigger problems. Let's see what he can do this season.

 

[Maplebeasts]

This is ridiculous.

The minnesota series was definitely a play off level match up.

Pettersson shown again and again that he is on Matthews tier, and you can argue that he is the better player.

You really can't right now. Pettersson will never produce enough (if he even does produce more) to make up for Matthews size and goal scoring. Both are quite good two way players.

 

[Maplebeasts]

Matthews is ahead of McDavid's career playoff numbers, but I don't think anyone puts much stock into that

Get out of here. You're not allowed to expose textbook doublethink.

 

[WetcoastOrca]

Tough call. He's in the Matthews/Eichel tier. Not as good offensive numbers but much better defensively imo. His first playoffs has been really impressive as well and we saw the same thing in the SHL playoffs where he won the award as best player as a teenager playing against men. He's a big game player.

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

I don't think he's quite there yet, but he's close enough that I'm not going to argue until I'm red in the face about it if someone thinks he is.

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

Tough call. He's in the Matthews/Eichel tier. Not as good offensive numbers but much better defensively imo.

I disagree that Matthews is in the Matthews tier. I'd say he's closer to Matthews.

 

[Krewe]

How can people still rank Malkin as top 5 after the games against Montreal? If Pit really did still have two top 5 centers, then they should have not had any issue moving on. Pitt isn't edmonton, they have more than two good players on the team.

 

[LeafsNation75]

Then why are you ignoring Petterson having 12 points in 8 games in these playoffs if you want to selectively clip out the playoff qualifier rd. This is just 1 point behind Matthews 13 points in his career and it took him 20 games to do it. Why not just give Petterson the credit that he deserves?

When it was announced that stats from the qualifying rounds would count as playoff stats, a lot of people said the NHL was wrong for doing that and why there should be an asterisk if some playoff records happen to get broken.

 

[Stamkos4life]

Matthews probably has the best shot in the league save for Ovi. It doesn't matter that he plays center. With him adding the slapshot more this year he can be a nightmare if you give him space. I think this coming season you'll see around 50-60 goals and 40-50 assists assuming he plays a full season.

He's actually a good player maker as well, it's just he either plays with Marner who might as well not shoot or Nylander who has a great shot but before this year was inconsistent with hitting the net. If the Leafs put Robertson on his line next year, I'd wager he'd set a career high in assists. A line of Robertson, Matthews and Nylander would have the 3 best shots on the team all on one line.

This is false. Jt is a better shooter than both nylander and robertson.

 

[Tony Stacks]

Nope. I'll take McDavid, Mackinnon, Crosby, Pettersson, Bergeron over him. The list is longer if we're talking about playoffs too.