Former NHLer makes surprising statement about Kirill Kaprizov and Auston Matthews

Scott appears to believe that Auston Matthews is only as good as Mitch Marner allows him to be, stating on his Dropping the Gloves podcast that if Kaprizov played alongside Marner for 82 games, he'd be a lock for 60 goals.

Look. I have nothing against Kaprizov, who just scored 108 points in 81 games. All indications are that Kaprizov is an excellent, probably even elite, hockey player. Scott does have a point that what Kaprizov accomplished last season playing with a pair of career 2nd liners is very impressive. But Matthews just scored 60 goals and 106 points in 73 games. It included a stretch of of 50 games where Matthews scored 51 goals.

There's no guarantee that Marner and Kaprizov would have the same chemistry that Marner and Matthews have. To say that Matthews is only Matthews because of Mitch Marner is both unfair and untrue. Auston Matthews is a generational goal scorer. Not only that, but he doesn't sacrifice his strong defensive play in pursuit of his offense. Matthews is a unicorn. As great as Kaprizov is, he's not a generational anything and he's certainly not a unicorn. He's just another highly skilled Russian winger.