Auston Matthews is not leading the NHL in ice time

Matthews and the grinder. Nothing has enthralled the masses of Leafs fans over the years since 2016 more than the ice time of Auston Matthews. When he was young, you could stir people up by noting if he didn’t play more than John Tavares every game — even if it was only by a few seconds. When he got older, and Boston became the playoff opponent, it was harder to find cases that persisted for a full game, but the idea had stuck that he was underplayed.

The easy regular season way to froth things up was to pick an early game full of penalties taken by the Leafs and use all-situations ice time. Some grinder PK forward (it was Leo Komarov one time) will have much more time on ice than Matthews,…