From the left: Maple Leafs forwards Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and Matthew Knies watch from the bench during the third period of Game 5 against the Florida Panthers in Toronto on May 14.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
Not so long ago, you only heard about the suffering a hockey player had done in the playoffs if he’d broken something, as well as won something. Those were the Bobby Baun days.
After a while, that halo of toughness was passed down through the rounds. Player X had scored a bunch and still lost in the conference finals, but he had a torn whatever.
The trickle continued down to the second round and then the first, but reticence remained the etiquette. You didn’t say anything until the team was eliminated.
So in that sense, Auston Matthews is having a remarkable playoffs. He’s changed the rules of the game.
According to The Matthews Rule, you tell everybody you’re injured before anything’s been decided. Just in case.
Matthews did it two weeks ago and just in case is right now.
Halfway through the playoffs, here are some players who have scored as many or more times as Matthews (who has two goals): Shayne Gostisbehere (three goals), Josh Manson (two goals) and Nate Schmidt (three goals).
They’re all defenceman. None of them are on the first-unit power play. They had 13 regular season goals. Combined.
In the normal course of things, Matthews would be getting shredded right now. Except he’s hurt. He said that when things were still looking up against Ottawa.
He played it very coy – “it’s not a big deal” – so it could be anything from a slipped disc to a sprained finger. As long as it remains Schrodinger’s Injury, Matthews is getting away with it. But that gets harder with every miserable loss.
The way things are going, Matthews will have to walk out of the shower wrapped in a towel and go straight to the hospital to have one of those Six Million Dollar Man ‘We can rebuild him’ surgeries. That’s the only way anybody will understand what’s happened.
It still won’t explain why Matthews is currently so good at some of the minor parts of his job, and so terrible at the one he gets paid for.
Matthews hasn’t looked anywhere close to scoring in this series. He appeared midway through Toronto’s 6-1 shellacking on Wednesday night, popping out from behind the net for a point-blank chance.
As you watched him, your thought wasn’t, ‘That’s a goal’. It was, ‘Auston Matthews is here?’ He shot it centre mass into Sergei Bobrovsky – an easy stop. And that was it for the evening.
The Leafs and head coach Craig Berube have been pushing the idea that while Matthews may not be scoring, he is a more complete player in these playoffs. He’s even skating back to defend (as if that were a skill rather than a commitment).
Matthews is winning more than half of his faceoffs. He’s playing the usual heavy load of minutes. He’s getting plenty of time on the power play.
Except the Leafs already have a guy who wins faceoffs and comes back on defence. He’s called Scott Laughton. Matthews makes about five times what Laughton makes because that’s what those things are worth.
It also begs a question – if Matthews is able to do everything except one thing, how badly hurt is he?
After Wednesday night, more new rhetorical ground was broken. Usually, a star who is playing poorly flagellates himself in public, while his coach mounts his defence.
Instead, Matthews has decided to start acting as his own lawyer: “I don’t look at myself as like a one-dimensional player. If I’m not scoring, I’m trying to do all the other little things that make myself successful, that make the team successful.”
I’d love to listen in as Matthews tries that pitch out on his own agent before his next contract negotiation. ‘It’s not about getting caught up in one thing, man. I want to be, like, holistic.’
He’ll be talking to a dead phone line before he gets two sentences in. Nobody wants Auston ‘little things’ Matthews. Saying it out loud in front of a microphone shows you how discombobulated he has become.
Hockey boils down to two jobs – putting the puck in the net, and keeping the puck out of it.
Lots of people can do the latter, and relatively few the former.
Pucks in the net – that’s Matthews’ job. If he can’t manage it, the rest is meaningless. It’s like your cab driver going on and on about delivering the smoothest ride you’ve ever had, and then dropping you off at the wrong airport. You had one job.
If Matthews is so hurt that he can’t perform, one wonders why the Leafs keep pushing him out there. He is still their most valuable human asset. There will be other playoffs. Why risk it?
If he’s not so badly hurt that he is incapable of performing, then what’s the issue? This is where we start reaching beyond the physical.
Matthews has never been an effusive guy, though he’s also not a self-contained one. When things are going well, you’d call the way he carries himself ‘professional.’ When they aren’t, it comes off as detached.
He was at it again on Wednesday, speed talking robotically through his postgame remarks, staring at the floor, eyes blank. You got the strong sense of someone who, at best, tolerates their job. You get that a lot from him.
Maybe he’s really hurt. Maybe it’s not all that bad, but he’ll get some sort of minor surgery in order to give the story legs. Maybe the way it’s going is eating him up. Maybe he’s sick of being here.
Or maybe Matthews just isn’t a gamer. Twenty-five goals over 66 playoff games suggests that’s the strongest possibility.
Not every great player is great when it matters. Some of them still find a way to be useful. Phil Kessel springs to mind.
First they have to accept who they are, what they are capable of and what matters. Front-loading and then leaning into your excuses does not suggest Auston Matthews is yet on the path to that particular form of enlightenment.