Toronto Maple Leafs players Mitch Marner and Auston Matthews have been doing well at breaking franchise records lately. Both are inching closer to breaking even more of them soon.
Matthews and Marner recently became the fastest and second-fastest Toronto Maple Leafs players to reach 500 points. At the rate at which these two produce points, they will be approaching 600 points in no time. They will both be within the striking range of 600 next season.
We have already seen Matthews break the Toronto record for goals by a Toronto rookie and the most goals in a season by any Toronto player. Marner set a new Toronto record with his 23-game point streak earlier this season. There are a lot of records that don’t seem safe with these two on the team.
All these records seem even more impressive when you realize that Matthews and Marner are only in their seventh NHL season. Should they be able to stay healthy, they have at least another seven years left to accomplish even greater things.
Toronto Maple Leafs Forward Mitch Marner Climbing Assists List
This season is the seventh season of Mitch Marner’s career, and the Toronto Maple Leafs forward is moving up on the All-Time assists list. The 25-year-old is in seventh place for most assists by a winger within first seven career seasons.
Marner currently has 351 career assists. He recently passed Mats Naslund (Montreal), who had 349 assists by the end of his seventh season. Next on the list are Jaromir Jagr (367) and Luc Robitaille (369). Marner needs 17 more assists to pass Jagr and 19 more to pass Robitaille.
(Stats from hockey-reference.com)
At the top of the list is Jari Kurri, with 398 assists. Kurri’s first seven seasons were 1980-87 with the Edmonton Oilers. Being a linemate of Wayne Gretzky will earn you a lot of assists. It is unlikely that Marner will pick up the 48 assists needed to pass Kurri with 41 games left in the 2022-23 season. I will not say it is impossible, but it is unlikely.
Marner finished the first half of this season with 34 assists. If he can match that in the second half, he will finish his seventh season with 385 assists. That would move him passed Guy Lafleur (384) and make Marner the third-fastest player to reach that many assists in their first seven seasons.
It will be exciting to see if Marner can achieve this by the end of the season. If his second half of this season is anything close to his second half of last season, he will be fine.