The Toronto Maple Leafs' Auston Matthews celebrates after scoring his third goal of the game against the Minnesota Wild at Scotiabank Arena on Oct. 14.Dan Hamilton/USA TODAY Sports
By the time he gets to the end of his current contract, Auston Matthews will be the greatest Toronto Maple Leaf in history.
The point of the game is to score and no Leaf has done that better than he has. Matthews already has more goals in blue-and-white than George Armstrong and Frank Mahovlich. Dave Keon is in his sights this season.
He’ll catch the top man on the list, Mats Sundin, around 2026. Then he’ll have a couple more years to pad his lead. Numerically, it will be unquestionable.
Does it feel to you like Matthews is the greatest Leaf ever?
Most old-timers wouldn’t put him in the top 10. Like his colleagues, his career to this point might best be described as all powder and no bang.
There’s been some spark this year, however. Matthews has two hat tricks in his first two games. He has scored these goals every which way – via power, stealth, smarts and luck.
The nicest one on Saturday versus the Minnesota Wild was a 270-degree wraparound that started behind the net.
“At what point are you thinking wraparound?” a reporter asked him.
Matthews looked confused – “It’s just hockey.”
When you’re really good at something, you don’t know how you do it. You just do.
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With the Leafs, there are always two ways to look at anything. They have scored a baker’s dozen in their first two games of the season, which is good. They’ve also let in nine goals, which is bad.
Come the playoffs, the team will be regretting one of those tendencies a lot more than it will be celebrating the other.
But for now, the Leafs sound pleased with where they’re at.
How do you know when the Leafs are in a good mood? Because they look like they’re in a bad one. When things are working out for them, the Leafs present as utterly joyless, lest they be accused of getting ahead of themselves.
So when Matthews tried to sum up two great shows, he sounded like he was explaining a fender bender at a collision reporting centre.
“It’s always fun and always positive,” he told reporters.
The written word cannot capture the boredom with which he said this.
Which is fine. After a lot of experience, the Leafs core understands that no one is going to be happy for them at this time of year. They can win games by football scores, and all it’s going to accomplish is getting people pre-angry for the moment they stop doing that.
The defence against that sort of civic anxiety is incrementalism. Listen to the Leafs talk. From the president to the towel guy, they’re always talking about getting just a little bit better, going a little bit further, winning just a couple more.
Achievable goals. That’s what the Leafs are about. After realizing they never achieve any of those achievable goals, they’ve stopped talking about goals altogether.
“I’m not really thinking in the past,” Matthews said, on the tricky subject of statistically outstanding seasons of yore. “It’s all about today.”
The Leafs live in the immediate moment because that’s the only safe place for them.
Again, fine. Whatever you need to do to get yourself in the right headspace to go to work. If Matthews wants to weld blinders onto his helmet and can still score a couple every night, no one will care.
But eventually, someone is going to have to break out of this ‘small steps’ mindset. Good teams set big goals and aren’t afraid to talk about them.
We don’t do that up here because ambition is a bad word in Canada. As a result, Canadian teams have none.
Imagine the craze that would be caused if the Winnipeg Jets came out in September and said, “Mark it down. This is our year. Nothing’s gonna stop us now.”
People wouldn’t know what to do with that. They’d laugh at them for doing what sports teams are supposed to do – whip people up.
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All Canadian teams would like to win a Stanley Cup, but none of them are going to talk about it in the sort of way that could get used in a headline six months from now.
Also, what’s worse than losing in this country? Getting a fat head.
You’d like to believe that someone will eventually come along in hockey who isn’t afraid to talk like a winner. Where is the NHL’s Kobe Bryant or Derek Jeter or Tom Brady? Someone who speaks in non-conditional terms about winning, all of the time. Even after they’ve lost.
Leagues are built on the shoulders of players like that. The basic requirement for becoming one is outrageous skill, sustained over a substantial period of time.
Matthews is the only Leaf who qualifies.
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The best thing the Leafs have done in the past couple of years was re-sign Matthews before the first question asked after practice every single day was ‘So what’s the news on Matthews?’
It’s a four-year deal. By the time it’s done, Matthews will have fallen over the edge of 30. History suggests that’s when he starts to become John Tavares – still good, but, man, you should have seen what he used to be.
There’s a possibility Matthews is Gordie Howe and will be great until he’s 40, but I wouldn’t plan for that to happen. Better to stick with averages and assume you are in your peak performance window right now.
If so, two three-goal games to start a season is a good way to start. Talking like you think something’s changed would be even better. Making a promise that could come back to haunt you would be best.
You can’t spring a winning mindset on this town in April. You have to warm them into it. You’ve solved the first problem – not being terrible straight off. Now there’s the second – convincing people this isn’t a time-delayed disappointment in disguise.
If anyone’s ever going to buy that line, it has to come from the guy at the top, at volume, and repeatedly. If Matthews says it, others may believe it. Maybe even the Leafs themselves.