from Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun,
Auston Matthews played his 117th game Wednesday night, and during his season and a half in the National Hockey League no one has scored more than him at even strength....
Maybe even more incredible than all of this: In the time in which Matthews has led the NHL in 5-on-5 scoring, 56 different players, all of whom rank behind him in scoring when it’s most difficult to score, have scored more power-play goals than Matthews.
That’s not on the young player. That’s on Mike Babcock, the usually sensible, pragmatic, and sometimes stubborn coach of the Maple Leafs. He decides how to employ his talent. A lot of what he does makes sense. He’s a great coach. But some of what he does — like his regular usage of Roman Polak — is easy to question....
The amount of time Babcock assigns Matthews with the man advantage ranks him a ridiculous 201st in the NHL in power play ice time. He’s right there along with non-comparables such as J.T. Miller and Danton Heinen and Joshua Ho-Sang. Playing half the power-play time of the majority of NHL stars.
By the way, Toronto lost 4-3 to Ottawa last night, game highlights are below...
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