Auston Matthews Sets New Standard As Maple Leafs Captain, Leading Optional Skill Session Amid Slow Start

The schedule finally gave Jim Hiller a skill day. Auston Matthews did not treat it as optional.

Matthews and his linemates (Kirill Marchenko and Jack Roslovic) were on the ice Sunday at Ford Performance Centre, a day after a 3-2 loss to Ottawa in which the captain scored his first of the season and the top line again lived around the net without living on the scoresheet enough. Hiller did not have to sell the session.

“They want to score, right?” the Leafs coach said. “I mean, they’ve been around it a lot, but again, not falling, posts, crossbars. So they’re out there trying to get better, which is great.”

That is the early-season picture. Toronto is 1-2-0. All three games have been one-goal games. The team has had the looks. The looks have hit iron, goalies and, on Saturday, a third period that barely contained five-on-five hockey. Hiller said the top line has been the exception to the finishing problem in one important way: it has not been cheating to create.

“They’ve been dangerous offensively, and they really haven’t given much up defensively either,” Hiller said. “They’ve really got some really favorable splits. So it’s not like they’re cheating for offense. They’re playing both ways, and they’re creating. We’re just waiting for the night that, you know, two, three, or four actually end up going in the net.”

Matthews’ goal Saturday was the kind of finish that does not show up in a skills reel and still counts. He deflected Morgan Rielly’s point shot 33 seconds into the second period to tie the game 1-1. Hiller was asked whether the manner of the goal, a precise tip, not a clean look, can do more for a scorer than a snapshot in the top corner.

“When you’re going to score as many goals as he does, you’re going to score them in a lot of different ways,” Hiller said. “I think, yeah, that was a difficult goal. I think we all liked the snapshot in the top corner. We can appreciate that, but that requires probably some more skill, right? The way that went in. So you don’t score that many without being able to be extremely talented in scoring them in different ways.”

Hiller spent three years with Matthews when the center was younger. He said the captaincy has matched what he thought he was watching then.

“It’s been everything I could have hoped for,” Hiller said. “Spent three years with him when he was a young guy, and could just, I felt, could just see someday him being the captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs and leading and playing the game the right way. As I mentioned, lots of chances for, and not much against. So he’s just doing all of that right now.”

Colton Sissons, watching the same optional, put the habit in plainer terms.

“Whatever guys feel that they need, they should be doing that,” Sissons said. “And obviously, there’s a reason why he’s the talent that he is and has had the success that he’s had, and he puts in the work for sure.”

The work on Sunday was touch, skill and finishing. The underlying case Hiller is making is simpler. The top line is already tilting the ice. The scoresheet has not caught up.

In past years, you wouldn’t see top stars take the ice for a skills day. Matthews’ recognition of needing to be out there to improve the club is a positive sign that things do feel different around the Leafs beyond the personnel.

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