Auston Matthews

Last Season

Twenty-seven goals and 26 assists in 60 games — 53 points, minus-four, at 20:48 a night with five power-play goals. Twenty-two games missed.

His 689th career game and his 780th point. Four hundred and twenty-eight goals.

The Finesse Game

The shot is still the best of its kind in the sport — the release is disguised in a way no coach has found an answer to, and he scores from the tops of the circles on goaltenders who know exactly what is coming.

Three hundred and thirty-two unblocked attempts, the most on the club, 29 goals, median 23 feet with 43 per cent from inside twenty. The volume and the location are both intact.

Twenty-six assists in sixty games is the lowest rate of his career.

The Physical Game

Six foot three, 215, and stronger than he is given credit for — he protects pucks well and takes a beating in the slot. Eighteen penalty minutes.

Twenty-two games missed, and it is now three seasons in four. The wrist and the back have both cost him time and this is no longer an occasional thing.

The Intangibles

Forty-six point seven per cent of the expected goals, 24th percentile, and 45.8 per cent of the shot attempts, 16th, across 933 minutes, with the goals 33-46 against.

That requires the club context to read honestly. Not one Toronto skater finished above 48.9 per cent in chance share last season — not Matthews, not Nylander, not anybody. The club was 44.8 per cent in attempts, among the worst in the league.

Six points in his last ten, one a goal. He is 28, the captain, two Rocket Richards and a Hart, and he has just had the least productive full season of his career on the worst possession team he has ever played for.