This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

Auston Matthews

Sixty-nine goals on 540 attempts, both the most of anybody in this edition.

Season	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM	PP	SH	GW	S	S%	TOI

2016-17	TOR	82	40	29	69	+2	14	8	0	8	279	14.3	17:38
2017-18	TOR	62	34	29	63	+25	12	5	0	5	187	18.2	18:08
2018-19	TOR	68	37	36	73	-9	12	12	0	5	251	14.7	18:33
2019-20	TOR	70	47	33	80	+19	8	12	0	5	290	16.2	20:58
2020-21	TOR	52	41	25	66	+21	10	10	0	12	222	18.5	21:33
2021-22	TOR	73	60	46	106	+20	18	16	0	10	348	17.2	20:37
2022-23	TOR	74	40	45	85	+31	20	13	0	8	327	12.2	20:17
2023-24	TOR	81	69	38	107	+31	20	18	0	8	369	18.7	20:58
2024-25 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	562	368	281	649	+140	114	94	0	61	2273	16.2	19:48

This Season So Far

The 2024-25 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.

Last Season

81 games, 69 goals and 38 assists for 107 points, 18 on the power play, 20 penalty minutes, 20:58 a night and plus-31, with 8 game-winners. He took 56.8 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,269 minutes, the 92nd percentile, and his ice went 81-53 against an expectation of 65.12-49.55.

Sixteen goals of finishing above what the chances were worth and three more conceded than they called for. Sixty-nine goals is the most of anybody in this edition by twelve, and the plus-31 is the best figure on the club.

The Finesse Game

540 attempts at a median of 23 feet with 41 per cent of them from inside twenty and 15 per cent from beyond forty, 375 of those on goal, converted at 18.7 per cent against a career 16.19 across 2,273 shots.

368 career goals in 562 games. Five hundred and forty attempts is the most of anybody in this edition; he shoots from the top of the circle and from the paint with the same release, gets it away before a defenceman has closed the lane, and does it from either foot.

The Physical Game

He is 6-3 and 215 and took 20 penalty minutes.

114 career penalty minutes in 562 games is a very low total for a large centre who plays twenty-one minutes a night. He protects the puck with his frame on the cycle and is genuinely difficult to knock off it, and he does not retaliate.

The Intangibles

First overall in 2016 by Toronto, eight seasons, one organisation, and 649 points in 562 games.

A career plus-140 and 94 power-play goals in 562 games. He is 26, he has scored 40 or more in six different seasons, and he has played every one of his NHL games for the club that drafted him first overall.

What kind of player

The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.

measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed

Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.

hard-shot· beats a goaltender from range
7 of 83 attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 8.4%, 98th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.21) · 16% keep it
durable· was available
81 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
drives-play· the shot clock turns his way while he is out there
56.8% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 49.8% for his club in the minutes he sat: +7.0, 94th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
workhorse· carries the load at even strength
15:40 a game at five-on-five, 97th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.78) · 58% keep it
net-fronta strength· lives in the blue paint; the screens and the tips
“Five hundred and forty attempts is the most of anybody in this edition; he shoots from the top of the circle and from the paint with the same release, gets it away before a defenceman has closed the lane, and does it from either foot.”
hard-to-movea strength· cannot be shifted from where he decides to stand
“He protects the puck with his frame on the cycle and is genuinely difficult to knock off it, and he does not retaliate.”
leadershipa strength· the room, and who holds it
“A career plus-140 and 94 power-play goals in 562 games.”

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,269 minutes

Expected goals: 56.8%; 94th pct
Shot attempts: 54.4%; 87th pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 81 for, 53 against. Expected: 65.1 and 49.5.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

99th

Numbers

94th

The two rank him within 5 points of one another. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason.

Both bars are percentiles among the 652 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 86 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.

Tracked

NHL Edge, 2023-24 · 81 games

Top speed: 22.5 mph; 65th pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 1.43 a game
Distance: 3.48 miles a game
Hardest shot: 91.4 mph; 78th pct

A top speed is a season's best, and a man who takes more shifts gets more tries at one; the percentile is the feed's own, against every skater, and says less between a top-pair defenceman and a fourth-line wing than it does between two men in the same job. The counts are shown per game for the same reason.

Usual linemates

2023-24 · 1269 minutes at five-on-five

Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.

Why the numbers land there

Five-on-five, 2023-24

The club: TOR took 52.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 56.8% — 4.7 above the club he did it on.
The role: Second line, 1,269 minutes at five-on-five — 88th percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Mitch Marner	56.9%	56.6%	49.4%
Matthew Knies	61.1%	53.3%	38.9%
Morgan Rielly	52.6%	59.6%	48.6%

56.9% together, 56.6% for him apart and 49.4% for Marner apart. Marner was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Marner than for him.

Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.

Where he shoots from

goal on goal missed

540 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 71 of them goals. His median goal came from 22 feet. 41% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 15% from beyond forty.