In that game, Matthews led all Toronto forwards, averaging a staggering 56 seconds of ice, per even-strength shift. By comparison, Tavares and Marner averaged 42 and 40 seconds on their shifts, respectively. Fast forward to Game 7 and despite Babcock using Matthews as much as Tavares (25 even-strength shifts each) and more than any other forward, the Leafs leading goal scorer’s average of 40 seconds per shift was significantly less than his elite offensive teammates – 14 seconds per shift shorter than Marner and 20 seconds per shift shorter than Tavares.

Babcock didn’t play Matthews less in the last two games of the series, Matthews just played less.

So, my question isn’t so much ‘Why didn’t Babcock let his horse run’, as it is, ‘Why didn’t his horse have more left in the tank late in the series?’ The coach controls deployment and, overall, Babcock sent Matthews over the boards as much as his other top guys.

Looking at Matthews’ 3rd period deployment in Game 7, with the Leafs season on the line, it is curious that Matthews only had a total of 7 even-strength shifts. Tavares, Marner, Zach Hyman and William Nylander all had more. But, maybe Babcock knew what the numbers above suggest, which is Matthews didn’t have enough left, for whatever reason, to be double shifted repeatedly at that point in the game and the series. Nobody has a better feel for his bench than the head coach and it’s not like Matthews was buzzing in the ice-time he did get late in that game. Matthews had one shot on goal in the 3rd period and none in the final 14 minutes. The matter was also complicated by the fact that Nazem Kadri was out of the line-up, limiting Babcock’s ability to shuffle players around, namely William Nylander who took over Kadri’s 3rd line center role. Babcock spoke about just that after Game 7, saying, “It was unfortunate, the incident with Naz – he wasn’t available, was like an injured player in the playoffs. We thought that was going to give us some depth and would have allowed us to move Willie around a bit, which we were never allowed to do.”

By no means am I looking to absolve Babcock of all blame for his teams failures – there were definitely adjustments that could have been made (see Patrick Marleau’s usage) – but the more I look at Matthews deployment and ice-time, the more I get the feeling there’s more to this particular story than meets the eye.

Maybe we’ll find out more at the Maple Leafs end of season press conference this afternoon.

(Photo by Eliot J. Schechter/NHLI via Getty Images)