Both are phenomenal hockey players and since being drafted first-overall at the 2015 Draft, Connor McDavid has been razzling and dazzling the Edmonton Oilers fans. But in Alberta, they’re used to more than that, they’ve seen Wayne Gretzky evolve under their very eyes and they lived through a dynasty. Meanwhile, the Toronto Maple Leafs fans were blessed with the 2016 first-overall pick, Auston Matthews. Since he arrived in town, he has shone brightly in the regular season and there’s plenty of hardware on his mantelpiece, but just like McDavid, he has no Stanley Cup ring. Now, McDavid only needs four more wins to raise the Cup, will he beat Matthews to it?
The Statistics: Matthews vs McDavid
McDavid has been in the NHL for nine seasons in which he has played 645 games gathering 335 goals and 647 assists for a total of 982 points, just 18 points short of the 1,000 milestone. This gives him a 1.52 point-per-game average. Over the nine years he has played with the Oilers so far, they qualified for the playoffs six times. In those six postseasons, he scored 106 points (34 goals and 72 assists) in 67 games. This gives him a 1.59 P/G.
Matthews has been in the NHL for eight seasons and has laced them up for 562 games in which he has scored 368 goals and 281 assists for 649 points. His P/G average stands at 1.15 in the regular season. As for the playoffs, in each of his eight seasons, the Maple Leafs qualified for the spring dance. In those eight Stanley Cup Playoffs, Matthews has played 55 games and scored 23 goals and 25 assists for 48 points. That rounds up to 0.87 P/G.
One thing jumps out at me about those statistics. In six postseasons, McDavid played more games than Matthews in eight years of playoff action. Furthermore, McDavid’s P/G is better in both the regular season and during the playoffs. Even more importantly though, his production goes up when it’s time to chase the Stanley Cup, while Matthews’ goes down.
But…Matthews Scores More Goals!
Yes, Matthews does score more goals, it’s impossible to argue against that, he’s got 368 goals in 562 games which comes to 0.66 goals per game. There’s a reason why he has got three Rocket Richard Trophies to his name and he’s actually won three in the last four years. Who’s got the fourth? McDavid of course. The Oilers captain has 335 goals in 645 games which comes to 0.51 goals per game.
In the playoffs, Matthews has scored 23 goals in 55 matches which comes up to 0.42 goals per game. As for McDavid, he’s found the back of the net 34 times in 67 games which comes up to 0.51 goals per game. Once again, Matthews’ production goes down in the playoffs and while McDavid’s average doesn’t improve, it doesn’t go down either.
Furthermore, even if a player isn’t the one who scores the goal, without his passing ability there would have been no goal either. While goals are more “glorified”, they still have the same value as assists.
Oilers and Maple Leafs’ Quests for the Stanley Cup
Edmonton has managed to get to the Stanley Cup Final and to be perfectly honest, I’m still wondering how. While McDavid was clutch again Sunday night scoring an absolute highlight-reel goal to open the scoring and adding an assist on top of that, the Oilers won the game with a total of 10 shots. They scored two goals on Jake Oettinger, a goaltender who got 35 wins this season and a .915 save percentage in the playoffs. It all seems so unlikely and yet here we are…although I should note both of the Oilers’ goals came on the power play. They have a habit of overpassing and just looking for the perfect play. It’s easier for those kinds of plays to connect on the power play and both goals were scored on the power play Sunday night. Perhaps the Florida Panthers should take note.
In the six years Edmonton made the playoffs with McDavid, the Oilers have won seven rounds of playoff hockey. Meanwhile, with Matthews in eight series, the Maple Leafs have only won one. The result of a series doesn’t lie on just one player, however. Hockey is a team sport and for the stars to align, you’ve got to have all the right ingredients on your team.
Related: McDavid vs Matthews Is Crosby vs Ovechkin 2.0
It’s been said so many times now, but the Maple Leafs’ main issue in the postseason is too much talent but not enough grit and physicality. As for the Oilers, for a long while, it was about their defence. Edmonton kept getting high draft picks and they would always go for the player who was producing the most offensively. That’s all well and good, but you cannot win hockey games without playing defence and stopping pucks, whether your players do it or your goaltender is a brick wall.
Eventually, the Oilers woke up and started tailoring their lineup to have a reliable defence. Mattias Ekholm, Evan Bouchard, Darnell Nurse, and Brett Kulak have been doing fantastic work. There still remains an issue though, the goaltending. When Jack Campbell became available in free agency, the Oilers signed him to a five-year contract with an average annual value of $5 million. Going after the Maple Leafs’ left-overs failed spectacularly with Campbell being sent down to the American Hockey League this season. Now, in the Stanley Cup Final, the Oilers are attempting to prove you can win a Cup without having barely good goaltending, no offense to Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard.
Will McDavid Win a Cup Before Matthews?
While McDavid is only four wins away from his first Cup, he hasn’t won it yet. So far these playoffs, Edmonton can kiss its lucky stars, because Skinner doesn’t have the numbers that normally go with a starting goaltender role. Right now, he’s got a .897 save percentage (SV%) and a 2.50 goals-against average (GAA). In theory, if it hadn’t been for the Oilers’ high-octane offence, they would have never made it to the Stanley Cup Final. But in the last round against the Dallas Stars, the most goals Edmonton scored in a game was three. That wasn’t the case in the first two rounds.
It sure looks like Skinner came up clutch when he was most needed. Will he be able to do it against the Eastern Conference Champions, the Panthers? In five games, they got 20 goals past Andrei Vasilevskiy in the five games of the first round, and that’s not an easy task. So far, Skinner has only played two games against the Panthers in his career, he’s won them both with a 2.53 GAA and a .929 SV%. Granted, that’s not a very big sample, but it’s still worth noting. Meanwhile, Sergei Bobrovsky has faced the Oilers 17 times, winning 11 games and losing six with a 2.70 GAA and a .906 SV%.
The answer to our original question depends on how Skinner performs. He’s only got four seasons of experience in the NHL and at 25, perhaps he hasn’t reached his ceiling just yet. Either Edmonton’s GM Ken Holland knew that to be the case and that’s why he didn’t get an upgrade in net or, he’s as lucky as can be. They do say you’ve got to be lucky to be good and good to be lucky eh?
On Sunday, June 9, 2024, it will be 31 years since a Canadian team won Lord Stanley’s Mug and I think I can speak for most Canadian fanbases when I say, it’s been long enough and it’s time for the Cup to come home. By June 24, at the latest, we’ll know the result and if McDavid won the race to the Cup he was involved in with Matthews.
