It seems that professional hockey has a new goal-scoring king roughly every decade, and that crown now belongs to Toronto Maple Leafs forward Auston Matthews.
Matthews is having one of the best goal-scoring seasons of recent history and it’s a shame that his campaign will be cut short at 56 games, instead of 82. At the rate that he’s scoring, he was on pace for a 66 goal season, which would have been the most in the 21st century.
In the history of the sport, there have only been 39 instances of a player scoring 60 or more goals, so Matthews would have been in rare company, if he would’ve been able to play a regularly scheduled season.
Although it’s fun to compare Matthews to some of the greatest seasons of all-time, it’s not fair because this season is 26 games shorter than a normal campaign. We can obviously praise Matthews for what he’s doing, but we shouldn’t be comparing it, because in those 26 games he’s not playing, a lot can happen.
Projections don’t tell the real picture and a 56-game campaign isn’t reflective of the actual 82-game season. For example, the Toronto Maple Leafs were technically a playoff team during the 2012-13 season with a 26-17-5 record, but we all know that wouldn’t have finished with a 44-29-9, as that projection would have suggested.
They more than likely would’ve crashed and burned, and would’ve been a lottery team, like they ended up being during the 2013-14 season.
Toronto Maple Leafs Matthews is the next Ovechkin
Although we shouldn’t compare stats based on a projection, we can now clearly say that Matthews is the next Ovechkin.
Ovechkin is still scoring at a great pace, but he’s 35-years-old and his production is going to slow down any year, now (probably…). Matthews, on the other hand, is just getting started and is the best pure goal-scorer in the NHL.
Here’s how Matthews and Ovechkin compare through their first five years in the NHL.
- Alex Ovechkin:
- 269 goals, 396 games, 0.68 goals per game (stats: hockeydb.com)
- Auston Matthews:
- 197 goals, 330 games, 0.60 goals per game (stats: hockeydb.com)
Ovechkin may have a better goal-scoring pace than Matthews, but he was 20-years-old when he played his first game, compared to Matthews, who was 19-years-old. Ovechkin had an extra year to mature, because of the NHL Lockout, whereas Matthews jumped into the league right away, and still scored 40 goals in his rookie campaign.
It may not be a huge age difference, but that extra year of maturity definitely helped Ovechkin.
Not only is Matthews tearing the league apart like Ovechkin, but they’re both 6-foot-3, 220-plus pounds and tough to play against. Another fun fact is that they were both born on September 17, so if you’re hoping that your kid becomes an NHL goal-scorer, plan your inception accordingly.
Joking aside, Matthews may actually be a better goal-scorer and player than Ovechkin, because he can score in a variety of ways. Ovechkin is typically known for his hard shot from the top of the circle that beats goalies on the power-play, whereas Matthews is a 5v5 goal-scoring machine.
It’s not just his phenomenal wrist shot that beats goaltenders. Matthews has the ability to deke past any defender and put the puck in the back of the net, in any imaginable way.
Not only is Matthews scoring at an incredibly high-rate, but he’s doing it at both ends of the ice, which is something Ovechkin rarely did. Matthews is one of the best two-way players in the NHL and is just as effective in the defensive or offensive zone.
When you’re watching it in real-time, it’s hard to appreciate, but there’s no reason to believe that Matthews won’t continue this goal-scoring streak for the next decade. With an ability to score in so many different ways, the 2020-21 season is not going to be the only year that he wins the Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy.
It’s hard to say that Matthews will match Ovechkin’s eight “Rocket’s,” but if anyone can do it’s him.