Will Auston Matthews find a second gear later in his career?
The Toronto Maple Leafs are looking to put their 2025-26 season behind them as quickly as possible. After missing the playoffs for the first time since 2016, the Leafs made radical changes. They brought in a new management team, coaching staff, and overturned much of their roster with an eye on getting back to being a postseason regular.
Toronto’s chances at consistent success over the next handful of years, however, still rely heavily on one man: Auston Matthews. The 28-year-old center is coming off arguably the worst season of his career, in which he put up 53 points in an injury-shortened 60 games. While that production is still good, the Leafs need him to be the dominant force we’ve seen in the past to realize the best possible version of themselves.
On Wednesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, hosts Tyler Yaremchuk and Carter Hutton reacted to Matthews’ placement at 18th on Paul Pidutti’s projection of the top 30 NHL players in 2030.
Carter Hutton: When I look at that board, for me, it’s the Auston Matthews one. I just think with the way that his game has regressed coming back after the knee injury, four years removed, that’s going to be the guy that I question. I know you might have a different take than me on this. I think he’s such a dynamic player that as age goes and you start to slow down, I worry that his team is not going to give him much around him to play and still be that offensive powerhouse we’ve seen in the past.
Tyler Yaremchuk: With Matthews, I’ll make a case for him not falling this hard. He went from eighth to 18th in these rankings year over year. As much as the last two years haven’t been great, and he’s been hurt and all of that, he is still two years removed from almost scoring 70 goals in a season. As he ages, I’m curious if there’s like this sort of Auston Matthews 2.0 that we eventually see. I’m not saying he’s going to become Alexander Ovechkin where he just takes 10 strides a shift and hangs out in one spot in the offensive zone and gets all his goals that way, but is there an era of Auston Matthews where he learns to almost play more on the perimeter and be almost more of a pure shooter if that makes any sense? Maybe he’s not driving play as much, but he’s still racking up a ton of goals, and maybe he finds a way to stay healthier doing that. A guy with that kind of talent who’s 24 months removed from almost scoring 70 goals in a season, I just don’t want to believe that by age 33 he’s going to fall off that much of a cliff.
You can catch the full discussion and the rest of Wednesday’s episode here…
