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Oilers @ Leafs - Dec. 13th, 7:00pm - SN

cw said:
His skating speed dropped him from 65th percentile to below 50th. He now loses more races to the puck than he wins.

Comparing this season to 2021-22 to 2023-24 (the 3 seasons before his more recent injury that includes prior injury)
Hits/60 is down 38%
Giveaways/60 is up 59%
Takeaways/60 is down 65%

He's playing like a guy who is avoiding/minimizing/reducing physical engagement (bad back? bad shoulder? bad something physical). Come playoff time, it is a liability. Opposing coach "hit the snot out of Matthews - he's playing hurt"

But we don't need the stats. Just watching him - he's not the same player. At this juncture, this long into his recovery, beyond the odd game, it has to be unlikely he ever will be again.
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In another thread, I mentioned these stats as a sign of decline for Matthews. I think a lot of Leaf fans are holding out hope that somehow it's fixable. If you point to coaching style, linemate adjustment, captaincy, or mental adjustment, that tends to feel like there is hope that a change can bring back the old Matthews. His shot speed and skating speed are the big ones. Those probably aren't coming back, and I think those are what were differentiators for him.

It's too bad, because for a while there it looked like he was going to be otherworldly. The Leafs version of MacKinnon, or McDavid. Now he's in that 2nd or 3rd tier of players below those guys.
 
There's always hope lol. Remember Wendel Clark...great first 2 years, then struggled with injuries for about 6 years before exploding for 46 goals in 93-94. Of course, playing with Doug Gilmour didn't hurt. Problem is, this team doesn't have a Doug Gilmour.
 
cw said:
His skating speed dropped him from 65th percentile to below 50th. He now loses more races to the puck than he wins.

Comparing this season to 2021-22 to 2023-24 (the 3 seasons before his more recent injury that includes prior injury)
Hits/60 is down 38%
Giveaways/60 is up 59%
Takeaways/60 is down 65%

He's playing like a guy who is avoiding/minimizing/reducing physical engagement (bad back? bad shoulder? bad something physical). Come playoff time, it is a liability. Opposing coach "hit the snot out of Matthews - he's playing hurt"

But we don't need the stats. Just watching him - he's not the same player. At this juncture, this long into his recovery, beyond the odd game, it has to be unlikely he ever will be again.
Click to expand...
The hits is a dead giveaway to a chronic issue and as many of us think it's his back. A shoulder doesn't effect his skating. A bad back has an effect on everything. For all we know it could be multiple injuries. Gives me Mike Bossy vibes.
 
Chris said:
There's always hope lol. Remember Wendel Clark...great first 2 years, then struggled with injuries for about 6 years before exploding for 46 goals in 93-94. Of course, playing with Doug Gilmour didn't hurt. Problem is, this team doesn't have a Doug Gilmour.
Click to expand...
Matthews is the closest thing we have to Dougie.
 
The most concerning thing is that he doesn't seem to get bounce backs with time off. He hasn't come into the season looking faster. He missed time during the season this year and while there have been flashes of "vintage" Matthews, it's just moments and still not anywhere near the norm.

They are either avoiding surgery for stupid reasons (like the Olympics) or its just not an option that is going to fix his career. It sucks. He'll still set franchise records but we are getting robbed of an all time great at this point.
 
L K said:
The most concerning thing is that he doesn't seem to get bounce backs with time off. He hasn't come into the season looking faster. He missed time during the season this year and while there have been flashes of "vintage" Matthews, it's just moments and still not anywhere near the norm.

They are either avoiding surgery for stupid reasons (like the Olympics) or its just not an option that is going to fix his career. It sucks. He'll still set franchise records but we are getting robbed of an all time great at this point.
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Yeah, like instead of being MacKinnon, he's Nik Suzuki.
 
Guilt Trip said:
Matthews is the closest thing we have to Dougie.
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Sure, but peak Gilmour >> peak Matthews. Gilmour had 63 points in 39 playoff games in his 2 best seasons. Matthews has never come anywhere close to that kind of overall performance.

At this point, barring some kind of miraculous cure or recovery, he really needs someone better to play with. He isn't the driver anymore.
 
Chris said:
Sure, but peak Gilmour >> peak Matthews. Gilmour had 63 points in 39 playoff games in his 2 best seasons. Matthews has never come anywhere close to that kind of overall performance.

At this point, barring some kind of miraculous cure or recovery, he really needs someone better to play with. He isn't the driver anymore.
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So he's like Obi Wan, and we need Darth Vader.
 
Chris said:
Sure, but peak Gilmour >> peak Matthews. Gilmour had 63 points in 39 playoff games in his 2 best seasons. Matthews has never come anywhere close to that kind of overall performance.

At this point, barring some kind of miraculous cure or recovery, he really needs someone better to play with. He isn't the driver anymore.
Click to expand...
Quick, someone watch Karate Kid really close and see what Mr. Miyagi did to fix Daniel.
 
rdowdall said:
Quick, someone watch Karate Kid really close and see what Mr. Miyagi did to fix Daniel.
Click to expand...
Or watch Kung Fu the Legend Continues where Gilmour helped Detective Caine while he was undercover as a hockey player. Although I think Gilmour was ignored after the Ancient told Caine that he needed to skate slowly.
 
Guilt Trip said:
The hits is a dead giveaway to a chronic issue and as many of us think it's his back. A shoulder doesn't effect his skating. A bad back has an effect on everything. For all we know it could be multiple injuries. Gives me Mike Bossy vibes.
Click to expand...
The change in giveaways/takeaways also suggests avoidance of physical engagement.

Matthews did go see Dr. Hans-Wilhelm Müller-Wohlfahrt in Germany in 2025 who has helped a number of high profile people with back problems.

My money has been on a back problem for some time. We may never know until he hangs them up.

About 2 decades after my last competitive hockey game, my back was sore from other activity. Bothering my golf. Went to a chiropractor. He was determined to straighten me out. He sure did. He seemed to wake up every nasty cross check I'd ever had. I'd completely forgotten about them. We're human. Not all our injuries heal 100%.

Of all injuries the team is going to be quiet about, back has to be at the top of the list or very near to it.

Not a certainty but a pretty good bet his back is bothering him.
 
OldTimeHockey said:
There's a pretty big gap between those two guys. Gilmour's war wounds proves it.
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Look I was crazy for gilmour as everyone else was back then, but let's be realistic here, gilmour had 2 monster regular seasons and playoffs surrounded by a very good rest of his career. The player he was in 92-94 was not his whole career.
 
Joe S. said:
Look I was crazy for gilmour as everyone else was back then, but let's be realistic here, gilmour had 2 monster regular seasons and playoffs surrounded by a very good rest of his career. The player he was in 92-94 was not his whole career.
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When Sundin left, someone said to me "You are about to see just how good of a player he was. Better than Gilmour even". The Leafs went from missing the playoffs by one or two points, to finishing second last, most of it just by having Sundin leave. Just throwing that out there to add to the conversation.
 
Joe S. said:
Look I was crazy for gilmour as everyone else was back then, but let's be realistic here, gilmour had 2 monster regular seasons and playoffs surrounded by a very good rest of his career. The player he was in 92-94 was not his whole career.
Click to expand...
NHL scoring was abut 20% higher in 1992-93. So Matthews 107 point season is probably close to Gilmour' 127 point season on a pure adjusted points basis. But what was special about Gilmour that year is he was about 50 points higher than the second guy on that team. Matthews had Marner's near 100 points helping him. We've seen it a lot over the years. I mentioned when Brett Hull lost Adam Oates, his goal scoring was never the same. Some of Gretzky's & Lemieux's lofty numbers were helped by their supporting cast. Marner led this team in PP scoring. Matthews doesn't look like the same player after his injury but part of it is I think he misses his wing man who also helped him defensively.
 
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