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Is Matthews the worst playoff performer ever?

Is Matthews the worst playoff performer ever?

  • Yes

    Votes: 28 27.2%

  • No

    Votes: 75 72.8%
  • Total voters
    103
For his cap allocation and regular season accolades and hype from the league and media and local fan base, Matthews is BY FAR the worst ever playoff performer.
 
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If the question is literal, I'm sure many players have been worse. There's no way he's been worse than Calle Jankrok (who has five playoff goals in his career in 105 games), for example.

If the question is whether he's the worst playoff performer relative to his talent level/expectations/salary, then he's in the conversation.


Tyler Seguin has averaged 16 goals and 43 points per 82 games in the playoffs. That's pretty terrible for a guy with his talent and size.

Alexei Yashin had 11 goals and 27 points in 48 playoff games (and numerous playoffs with zero points or one point). Just atrocious.

Then you have Rick Nash and guys like Stamkos and Thornton. I made a poll comparing his playoff play to that of the latter two.
 
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If you factor in regular season drop off and cap hit, IMO yes. He’s one of the best players of his generation in the regular season and a middle 6 centre in the playoffs
 
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Joe Thornton was quite a bit worse, as were other players. Matt Duchene is a current example that has a much larger drop off compared to regular season. John Tavares also.

At least Matthews has had 2 playoff seasons where he produced reasonably well. His last 2 seasons were awful, but he could improve going forward. I don't expect him to ever go crazy in production like McDavid, Draisaitl, or MacKinnon, but at least he is capable of being decent. I bet if he was in a low-pressure American market with other clutch players on the team, he'd get 1-1.2 points per game in the playoffs. Other players have been bad in the playoffs and turned it around later in their careers. For a goalie example, look at Bobrovsky. It doesn't help Matthews that he plays with Tavares who has had awful career playoff production. And Marner who is good early in series and disappears after game 4. And having no true puck-moving offensive defenseman hurts all the Leaf forwards.
 
Among the top 100 players of all time (and I'm not convinced Matthews is there yet), Marcel Dionne was definitely more dissapointing in the playoffs. He averaged 1.31 PPG in the regular season compared to just 0.92 PPG in the playoffs (a 30% drop in production). If you limit this to his prime years (1975 to 1986), it's slightly worse (1.45 RS vs 1.00 playoffs - a 31% drop).

Matthews' production drops about 26% in the spring. That's really bad by historical standards, but Dionne was worse.

(You can argue that Matthews is particularly disappointing because of his cap hit; that concept didn't exist during Dionne's time. On the other hand, Dionne brought nothing other than offense. Matthews is at least solid defensively, even if he's overrated in that area).
 
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zenator said:
Joe Thornton was quite a bit worse, as were other players. Matt Duchene is a current example that has a much larger drop off compared to regular season. John Tavares also.

At least Matthews has had 2 playoff seasons where he produced reasonably well. His last 2 seasons were awful, but he could improve going forward. I don't expect him to ever go crazy in production like McDavid, Draisaitl, or MacKinnon, but at least he is capable of being decent. I bet if he was in a low-pressure American market with other clutch players on the team, he'd get 1-1.2 points per game in the playoffs. Other players have been bad in the playoffs and turned it around later in their careers. For a goalie example, look at Bobrovsky. It doesn't help Matthews that he plays with Tavares who has had awful career playoff production. And Marner who is good early in series and disappears after game 4. And having no true puck-moving offensive defenseman hurts all the Leaf forwards.
Click to expand...

People also love to ignore that he’s a beast defensively who wins his matchups against the best players. He even did this against Bergeron and Barkov.
 
Thornton is the worst in my lifetime. Especially when you compare his regular season accolades to what he has done in the postseason. And he's a HOFer.
 
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Most disappointing yes, worst obviously not, you can find some 3rd/4th line plugs who probably have a few goals/assists in 20-30 games of play.
 
NVious said:
Most disappointing yes, worst obviously not, you can find some 3rd/4th line plugs who probably have a few goals/assists in 20-30 games of play.
Click to expand...

The worst playoff performer of all time doesn’t outscore everyone on the Tampa Bay lightning two series in a row, while holding them to zero shots on goal in an elimination game that went to overtime when he was on the ice, score 5 goals in a series matched up against Bergeron or score 4 goals in 6 games as a rookie against the presidents trophy winning Washington Capitals and get the best of his recent matchup against Barkov’s line.
 
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Article from 2024:
www.dailyfaceoff.com

Falling Short: Whose Production Drops Most in the Playoffs?

Don’t believe everything you hear. Some players’ reputations exceed their actual production.
www.dailyfaceoff.com www.dailyfaceoff.com

  • 10. Brayden Schenn (-19%)​

  • 9. Vladimir Tarasenko (-19%)​

  • 8. Blake Wheeler (-19%)​

  • 7. Aleksander Barkov (-20%)​

  • 6. Auston Matthews (-21%)​

  • 5. Mats Zuccarello (-21%)​

  • 4. J.T. Miller (-24%)​

  • 3. Steven Stamkos (-27%)​

  • 2. Artemi Panarin (-29%)​

  • 1. Tyler Seguin (-40%)​

​

​

 
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Yes. In a hard cap era, this is the highest paid player in the league. Also, this is the easiest era to play in yet he still gets intimidated. Even his GM has called him "despondent" after choking and getting owned by Ben Chiarot.

He's so irrelevant that other teams don't even have to go out of their way to target him. He just quietly skates around all night then goes home.
 
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authentic said:
The worst playoff performer of all time doesn’t outscore everyone on the Tampa Bay lightning two series in a row, while holding them to zero shots on goal in an elimination game that went to overtime when he was on the ice, score 5 goals in a series matched up against Bergeron or score 4 goals in 6 games as a rookie against the presidents trophy winning Washington Capitals and get the best of his recent matchup against Barkov’s line.
Click to expand...
The most disappointing does the following:
Goes from 5th all time in season gpg to 84th in the playoffs
Goes from 21st all time in ppg in the season to 89th all time in the playoffs
0/30 powerplay streak in elimination games in his prime
Injury prone and throws his teammates under the bus in his first year as captain
Highest paid in NHL surrounded by talent, 2/9 2nd round appearances, 0/9 ECF appearances and beyond and 7 first round losses
Outscored by over 100 players in the playoffs in terms of players that have equaled or surpassed his goals in games total

This is who Matthews needs to be competing with:

a247lm5k1c4f1.jpeg

Matthews out of 68 playoff games:
41% 0 points (28/68)
37% 1 point (25/68)
22% 2 points+
0 hat tricks, 0 4+point games
 
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One of the worst relative to expectations for sure. Weird how impressive the first year or two were for him and Marner, relative to their performance since then.

Hard not to interpret that as an indictment of the TML organizational culture.
 
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CokenoPepsi said:
Thornton is no superstar but he has at least shown up at times.

I would say Matthews is this generations Thornton when it comes to the playoffs...just worse
Click to expand...

He’s far better, Thornton was never a point per game in any playoff run in his life and Matthews is undeniably better defensively. I’ve also watched a ton of each in the playoffs, it’s Mathew’s and it’s not even close.

Watch each series he faced Tampa, or even the Boston one. Don’t think Thornton ever approached that level of play in the playoffs in his life.
 
I think people are confusing disappointing for worst here, Matthews has very obviously been a huge disappointment, especially when a playoff series is on the line.

Even if you’re thinking worst among star players, well no that goes to Thornton easily.
 
authentic said:
The worst playoff performer of all time doesn’t outscore everyone on the Tampa Bay lightning two series in a row, while holding them to zero shots on goal in an elimination game that went to overtime when he was on the ice, score 5 goals in a series matched up against Bergeron or score 4 goals in 6 games as a rookie against the presidents trophy winning Washington Capitals and get the best of his recent matchup against Barkov’s line.
Click to expand...
Can someone repost this because this poster either has me on ignore is just outright ignores EVERY TIME I CORRECT THESE MADE UP LIES?

Re: Tampa part of bolded
At no point did Matthews "hold them to zero shots on goal" during any game in either series. According to Naturalstattricks' game log for Matthews, this was his shots against log for both 2022 and 2023 versus Tampa:
(2022 series)
TB at TOR - 4 SA
TB at TOR - 5 SA
TOR at TB - 10 SA
TOR at TB - 3 SA
TB at TOR - 6 SA
TOR at TB - 11 SA
TB at TOR - 3 SA

(2023 series)
TB at TOR - 5 SA
TB at TOR - 6 SA
TOR at TB - 6 SA
TOR at TB - 8 SA
TB at TOR - 9 SA
TOR at TB - 10 SA

Where is this "held them to zero shots against"?

Re: Boston and Bergeron part of the bolded
At even strength the year Matthews scored 5 goals versus the Bruins, Bergeron was on the ice for ONE GOAL MATTHEWS SCORED. ONE. They weren't even really "matched up". Bergeron played a total of 24:28 versus Matthews that series. Krejci is the one who was "matched up" against Matthews more that year, playing 59:07 versus Matthews.

I guess this is one of those "keep saying these things and hopefully people won't check to see if it's true" things. Because I've literally corrected the poster multiple times on these "stats" they use to boost Matthews.
 
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Tomas Tatar AINEC, and I say that as a big fan of his

Just look at him in Montreal lol, nearly point-per-game and part of arguably the best defensive/puck possession line in hockey at the time, and healthy scratched in the playoffs
 
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