Auston Matthews

One of the greatest talents on the leafs is their very own Auston Matthews, he has already had such an amazing career and he's so young only 24 years old. He was drafted to the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2016 first overall and had probably one of the most impressive NHL debuts in history scoring not only a hat trick but 4 goals in his first ever NHL game he set a record and became the only player in modern era to score 4 goals in his first NHL game. In 2016 the leafs were not a very good team at all they were in the rebuilding process and when Auston Matthews joined the team and came out and did that I was very exciting for leaf fans everywhere. He definitely didn't slow down after that and went on to win the Calder trophy that season and helping to bring Toronto to the playoffs which had only been the second time since 2004. 

It's crazy to think about the fact that Auston Matthews is from Arizona, hockey isn't very popular there and not very many good hockey players come out of Arizona let alone a first round draft pick, although Matthews excelled at anything athletic when he was young he was also an amazing baseball player but he decided to focus on hockey and it's funny to think about the fact that when he was drafted in 2016 he was the first American born player to be drafted first overall since Patrick Kane in 2007, Matthews really just beat the odds.

One thing that I can say about him is that his injuries have become an issue for the leafs team, his second season with the leafs a shoulder injury forced him to miss almost 20 games, the team just isn't the same without Auston Matthews in the lineup. 

Unfortunately his playoff performance almost every year have been very disappointing especially last year he is supposed to be one of their top goal scorers and all he did was score one goal and get 4 assists in 7 games, for the leafs to be able to make it to the second round he needs to be playing a lot better than that. He is one of the leaders of the team and needs to seriously step up this year if they want to have any shot of ever seeing the Stanley cup.

To talk more about his skills on the ice it can be said without a doubt that Auston Matthews has probably one of the best shots in the league and is a goal scorer in only 30 games this season he has 22 goals already and he's having an amazing season, last year he also won the rocket richard trophy. He is in second place for best shot in the league behind Alex Ovechkin and he's only going to improve his shot over time. He is best known for his incredible wrist shot, I will put a video of one of his many perfect wrist shots and you'll see better why he's one of the best shooters in the league.

 Auston Matthews going the way he is could go down as one of the best leaf players in franchise history and without a doubt could end up in the hall of fame, here's to hoping he can one day bring home a Stanley cup.