This is WAY worse than we thought…

This is WAY worse than we thought…

Things are way worse than we thought as following what has been a brutal start to the season for Austin Matthews. He is now under fire by the fans, by the media, and for the first time he is truly in the spotlight, but this time in a negative manner surrounding not only his play, but some advanced analytics have recently dropped that has fans completely distraught. I would write down exactly what this means for the team and discuss how awesome Matthews his career has taken a very sickening turn for the past year and a half. Ton to go over on this episode as well as a few other updates. But before I get into it all, if you’re a part of the percentage who aren’t subscribed to the channel, this is the place to be for daily leaves content. About 70% of you who are watching aren’t subscribed. Now Darius obviously we’re early in the season and I say his career is taking a sickening turn. That’s not to say I don’t think he can get back to where he was. But thinking back to where he was just two years ago to where he is now. Fans have um I mean it’s just gotten a little bit crazy and it’s been a very big elephant in the room for us fans who are watching and of course from Austin Matthews himself who has seen his play decline. But Darius, things have really started to pick up especially within the media and reporters now is this Leafs team. Obviously they’re not playing well but some advanced stats have started to I guess go viral a little bit at least in Leafs land. You can see this here from Michael Dfano. Wow, this that stat kind of puts Matthew’s scoring roses into perspective. He has more 5v5 goals than anyone since he joined the NHL. However, he only has one five on five goal this season and six since February 1st, which is less than a6 goals per 60, ranking 250th in the league since then. So Darius, it’s been about a year and a half now approaching, you know, it’ll be two years basically once this season ends and things haven’t gotten better. And matter of fact, they’ve gotten worse. And the advanced analytics that are starting to come out now heading from this season dating all the way back to February 1st of last year, it is really concerning. Yeah. And we’re all hoping that the Blue Jays can bring home the World Series tonight. And if they do or you know the obviously it’s going to wrap up in the next two days one way or another, the spotlight is going to go back on the Maple Leafs. People are going to start to care daily again, right? they’ve kind of been able to hide a little bit, but this month has not been good and some of the problems have been uh sheltered because of that and we haven’t really been talking about them and one of them is Austin Matthews. Anytime you’re on a list with Capo Kako or right beside Capo Kako and you’re supposed to be one of the best goal scorers in the league, that’s not good news. So, he hasn’t been good for quite a while. And, you know, there’s a couple reports we’ll get into today. You know, Chris Johnson kind of pouring fire or sorry, water on some fires that some fans uh, you know, are going at in terms of him being injured. He’s not injured. He didn’t need surgery for whatever it was last year. He rehabed during the summer and now he’s back. He’s not injured, you know, to uh for our information or everything that we know. He is healthy this season. He’s ready to go and he has not been playing up to the standard that we know. Now, a lot of people are speculating and there’s a one tweet I want to get to that we have today that I think, you know, encapsulates it perfectly. I think that, you know, they’ve changed what they’re doing here in Toronto with the coaching staff and how they play. And I think Matthews might be a victim of that a little bit. You know, when you look at some of the coaches, Babcock wanted him to wanted him to play a certain way. Bubé wants him to play a certain way. I think Sheldon Keefe let him play the way that he plays and that’s why he went off for all those goals. But does that translate to playoff success? I’m not so sure. Right. So, they’ve changed the way they played. If you look at Alex Ovetchkin over the course of his career as well, and this is why I’m not really hitting the panic button yet. Let’s see how November goes, of course. But, uh, Alex Ovekin over the course of his career, he took a dip, too. around the same age, maybe a little bit older, but around the same age when there were some coaching changes and the Caps were changing the way that they did things as well. So, you know, you go through these things in your career sometimes. So, I’m looking at it that way. I’m expecting a big November and I think that they absolutely have to bounce back. There’s no way this team can miss the playoffs. That would be an absolute disaster. Uh, so I’m not hitting the panic button yet, but he does have to get going. And if they’re not in November, then of course we got to address the elephant in the room again. Yeah, you see it from Nicipio. I don’t know what’s going on with 34 right now, but it’s a problem. And everyone is, I guess, upset with uh I’m not super concerned in the long term, but maybe it is a long-term thing. The sample size is not small anymore. And you look at some of the advanced analytics, really bad stuff. Is it already time to be worried about Austin Matthews or not yet? My eye test says that Matthews hasn’t been as good as expected so far this season. And I mean, that would be correct. Obviously, I’m not sure how much this person is watching Leaf’s games. Obviously correct. He’s supposed to be one of the best players in the NHL, and that’s something that’s unfortunately not happening this year. Here you can see some other fans seeing a lot of Matthews talk. I’m just going to leave this here. No agenda, just a genuine belief. And this is what you were saying up or saying. Sorry, kind of backing it up. Babcock trying to make him play like Jonathan Taes. Buru is trying to make him play like Anday Kopitar and Keefe just let him let him be Austin Matthews. I think it’s as simple as that. And I think quite frankly it’s not as simple as that. Like I think there’s way more that goes into it. Of course he had that clear injury that did happen that you mentioned it. We don’t know if it’s affecting him mentally. I mean it probably is, but you know mentally, physically, it could be laboring. But I agree with you in the sense of from what we know, he’s he’s telling us that he’s not injured. So, we cannot go out and assume that he’s injured and assume any injuries are happening because he’s saying that he isn’t. He’s saying that he’s healthy. If he is injured, he shouldn’t be playing. But, I don’t know, there’s a lot that goes into it here. And Chris Johnson said, “Despite not scoring his usual pace, there are no injury concerns at Matthews. This isn’t a repeat of last season. It’s more about finding ways to get him uh the puck in better scoring areas.” So, it is an interesting one to me and one that is going to be a clear highlight. He’s, you know, eight points through 11 games. Not good enough for this team. But if the Leafs want to win the cup, they need him to be better than what he was last year. And of course, much better than what he was this year. The only difference is last year, he had the not the excuse. I mean, he was injured, but he had at least that, you know, kind of what fans could use that as, I guess, a little bit of for coping with how bad his season was. Cannot happen now. And this stat right here is uh it makes this season even worse than expected. And I know a lot of people in the comments are saying the record was the same as last year, which is fair enough, but their schedule is much easier, at least on the surface, this year than it was last year to start the year, but also they’re just playing bad hockey this year. I don’t care about if their records the same. They look like a team that could barely scratch a a playoff game. Yeah, we’ll get to that in terms of the team game in a second because there’s another thing I want to break down with that and why the organization isn’t panicking yet and why I feel like most fans shouldn’t yet. They’ll get back to it and playing their, you know, caliber a caliber of hockey and get back to it. But the other thing I wanted to say is um you know with Matthews this year the reason the spotlight is back on him is because of course Mitch Martner’s not here anymore right and a lot of people are looking towards him to be that guy and last year you know you knew that he was injured and I think a lot of fans looked at that and said okay he’s fighting through something and he’s still trying to play well and he’s still putting up points and that’s kind of endearing right and the fan base can kind of get behind that this year he’s healthy and it isn’t going well and then a lot of people are speculating that maybe he’s missing Mitch Marner listen this is a business right and he has to go after it he has to play his game. If there is any of that in his game or in his mind that he misses Mitch Martin or anything like that, get off my hockey team at that point, right? Like that there’s no way that can have any effect on anything moving forward. And if it does, you have to have that conversation. But, um, you know, for Austin Matthews this year, he has to find a way to get going at this point, especially offensively. But I do think there is a little bit of, you know, from the tweet you saw before, Buru wants him and the team to play a certain way, which is a little bit different than what they might be used to at this point or who they are as players. And if it brings a championship home, that’s all that matters. And then, you know, maybe they have another coach down the road before Matthews retires. Like, is Brew going to be here forever? Probably not. No coach is, right? So, uh, that’s just the way I’m looking at it. And we’re looking far into the future at this point, but I think they have to get back on track in November. They usually do. And there’s a team stat u not stat but you know something about the team I want to get to as well that you know Chris Johnson was saying that they aren’t panicking within the organization because the reason they’re losing games is glaring mistakes that they can clean up. there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the team at least in their eyes and I think I can agree a little bit to a degree with that but uh I think ultimately they’ll get going here in November and if they don’t then you get to have that conversation right okay we got to look at different things maybe start looking at trading people a lot of people were talking about tanking from McKenna it’s way too early for that but uh they do have to get going here for sure yeah they’re still 55 and one which it is what it is not a great record not a completely atrocious record so even though sitting at 500 doesn’t feel great the Columbus loss is frustrating again It’s more of a I mean you could argue less down below whether it’s more fundamental mistakes, whether it’s personnel, whether it’s coaching, whether you think all the blame relies on the elephant in the room. Awesome Matthews. Let us know down below what your thoughts are. Thank you guys for watching. Hopefully this team can take care of business

Nick Gosse and Darius Domingues break down some ridiculous Toronto Maple Leafs updates surrounding Auston Matthews.

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