Top NHL Insider reveals the reason behind Auston Matthews' slow start to the season

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Tom Banks
October 16, 2024 (6:02 PM)

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Auston Matthews currently has 0 points through three games, and now Elliotte Friedman has opened up on the reason behind his slow start.

After thee games this season, the Toronto Maple Leafs sit at 2-1-0 with two very impressive victories, and they've done so without some of their top names in the lineup due to injury. However, there's one glaring number that has been brought up over and over again on social media in the past few days, and that's the 0 in the points column for captain Auston Matthews, who is coming off a career-high 69 goals a season ago.

There could be many reasons for this, but according to NHL Insider Elliotte Friedman, the main reason is the extra responsibility of being named captain, with Matthews looking to focus more on the defensive side of the game to lead his team in the proper fashion.

"Matthews has no points after 3 games. It's rare for him, but it's not unheard of, but I thought the thing that was really interesting was I got a couple of texts from people who were like 'he's doing different stuff out there... what one guy said to me was that they put the C on him, and they say it's wrong to say that he didn't care about defense before, because he did, but it's almost like they said it raised him to like a higher level of consciousness about what he's suppose to be, right? And what the captain is supposed to be.

He might dispute that. I'm not sure he would like that, because he takes great pride in how well-rounded he wanted to be in the first place, but a couple of guys did say to me -- he doesn't give away a lot, but he almost looks completely unbothered by the fact that he's not producing while they're winning.

He's trying to be even more detailed than he was... I just thought that was an interesting take on him so far."

That may be true, but the team has succeeded despite his 0 points on the season, with just five goals allowed to this point, so clearly he's doing something that works, and if his extra intensity on one end of the ice leads them to another victory, there's no reason for them to change how things are going, even if the team would love to see him top 60 goals again.