Can Maple Leafs’ Auston Matthews get himself back into the Rocket Richard fight?

The 2024-25 season hasn’t gone exactly to plan for Toronto Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews. On top of the injury problems, his production has suffered a bit, particularly with his goal totals with just 17 in 31 games after scoring 69 in 81 last season.

But since returning from injury, he has scored in five of the seven games and has six in total in that span, including a two-goal performance on Thursday against the New Jersey Devils. He’s heating up again, and has shown that he’s capable of going on crazy goal scoring runs, so could he not only bounce-back in the second half, but chase down Leon Draisaitl in the goal-scoring race?

Tyler Yaremchuk and Frank Seravalli talk about the current goal-scoring race and whether or not Auston Matthews can get himself back into the conversation.

Tyler Yaremchuk: I did want to ask you, and this might sound weird, but Auston Matthews, we’ve seen him go on these runs where he’s like a goal a game for an entire month. If he were to do that, he would maybe get himself back in the mix. He’s at 17 goals right now, so 14 back. Is that just insurmountable considering his health issues?

Frank Seravalli: I think it’s not even just because of the health issues. I think to make up that much ground you would need these guys to also stop scoring. And I just don’t believe that Draisaitl, Sam Reinhart, Brayden Point, even Kyle Connor, all these guys are going to go quiet at the same time.

So that plus the health issue, I think to me makes it a non-starter. It doesn’t feel like he’s guaranteed to play every game the rest of the season based on what we think we know about the injury and how difficult it’s been and the hints that he’s given us about hoping that he’s fixed it. I think it’s a pipe dream at this point.

You can watch the full episode here…