Matthews has hardly been bad so he doesn't belong in this thread.
But he won't have any kind of "generational" status that occasionally gets lobbed his way until he puts up a generational playoff performance.
Not really.
He is horrendous relative to his season performance and cap.
His g/60 goes from 2/60 which is BY FAR the GOAT to a measly 1.1.6, good enough for 34th in the NHL. Even if you want to only allow players that have played 30+ games into that stat, he still ranks 27th which is horrendous.
His p/60 goes from 8th at 3.5/60 to 43rd at 2.4, even if we use the 30 game cutoff it's still 38th best.
Basically come playoff time he is around the 30th best forward in the NHL and it shows with his own poor stats/Toronto's poor results. Being the 30th best forward is not "bad" I guess, but relative to how good he can be it is.
Translation = he earned respect in the handshake line
He is the worst playoff performer in modern history. Completely soft with no grit. Not a winner.
At least Yashin played in a tight-checking era. Matthews just can't perform when the competition dials it up one notch.
Matthews was outscored by Sundin.
Matthews first 55 playoff games:
23 goals
Sundin first 53 playoff games:
25 goals
When you consider how mid those Leafs team were, how much offensive talent is on the current Leafs and how good Matthews is, that is really saying something. Matthews could be in the conversation as one of the greatest goal scorers and although Sundin was a good goal scorer, he's not even close to that realm and yet he's outscoring him in the playoffs in a way lower scoring era.