3 reasons Auston Matthews is the clear-cut frontrunner for the Hart Trophy
Maple Leafs center Auston Matthews has put up a legendary season, and it should end with him taking the Hart Trophy if he keeps up this epic pace.
Auston Matthews may not have recorded the highest number of points in the NHL this season. So far, anyway. But it doesn’t mean he’s not worthy of the league’s Most Valuable Player award, officially known as the Hart Trophy.
Matthews, who won the Hart in 2021-22, is on pace to have a better year in 2023-24 than he did that season. And what a memorable year that was for the then-24-year-old.
Matthews logged his first 100-plus-point campaign that season, recording 106 total, with 60 goals, 46 assists, a 17.2 shooting percentage, and an average total ice time of 20:37. He led the league in goals scored for the second season in a row, along with what was also a league-leading 44 at even strength. Matthews also paced the NHL with 348 shots on goal.
In that memorable season, he also won the Ted Lindsay Award and the Maurice Richard Trophy. Should Matthews continue at his potentially career-best pace, he could very well take not just the Hart but all of the above awards once again.
Auston Matthews should be the frontrunner for the Hart Trophy
While you can make the case that Matthews should be the current frontrunner for the Hart, he is also facing a lot of competition in his quest to become the most valuable player in hockey for the second time in his career. Nathan MacKinnon of the Colorado Avalanche is a serious contender, as are Sam Reinhart, David Pastrnak, and Nikita Kucherov, all of whom Matthews knows well, as they all reside in the Atlantic Division.
Connor McDavid is annually a frontrunner for the award, and he’s once again making his case known, being just one of three players as of March 22nd to have put up triple-digits in points, with Pastrnak and Artemi Panarin of the New York Rangers not far behind.
But what gives Matthews the edge over all of the above names? Here are three reasons he is the clear-cut frontrunner for the award and why he will end up taking the Hart if he keeps up his epic pace.
Matthews is compensating for some of Toronto’s major weaknesses
The Toronto Maple Leafs would be a great hockey team if they possessed better defense and goaltending. Unfortunately, this hasn’t been the case in 2023-24, as the team has allowed 215 goals in 68 games. That’s an average of 3.16 goals allowed per contest, or 259 when adjusted through 82 games.
Matthews has been a great two-way player since he arrived in Toronto, but he’s since taken his ability up another notch. Just like when he last won the Hart, Matthews is stealing the puck often, and if he can’t get a stick on it, he’s finding ways to stop incoming shots or using his strength to disrupt opponents.
Goaltending has been Toronto’s biggest weakness all season, and their defensive rotation has given those in the crease little help. Overall, their goaltending rotation of Ilya Samsonov, Joseph Woll, and Martin Jones have collectively registered just a 0.900 save percentage and a 2.95 GAA.
Without Matthews, these numbers would look even worse, and there is a good chance the Maple Leafs would have lost a few more close contests. This isn’t to say the poor defense and goaltending would have dropped them all the way to a wild card, but Toronto would be nowhere near as strong of a contender as they are with 87 points.
The Maple Leafs overall scoring wouldn’t be where it is
Not only would Toronto be suffering defensively without a player like Matthews, but there is no way they would be remotely close to third in the league with 251 goals scored. Currently, they are on pace to score between 302 and 303 goals this season, and Matthews, having found the net 57 times, has scored 22.7 percent of them.
Just because someone else would have been there in Matthews’ stead if he wasn’t a member of the Maple Leafs, Toronto wouldn’t be sitting at just 194 goals on the year if you took away the 57 he scored so far. But you can cut the number of goals he’s registered this season in half, which leaves you with between 222 and 223.
Not a bad number, but it would leave Toronto somewhere between 12th and 13th in the league rankings. And remember, there is a good chance they would have allowed over 215 without his presence, meaning there’s a good chance Toronto’s goal-differential would either be slightly in the plus range or even somewhere in the negative range.
Nobody, not William Nylander, John Tavares, or Mitch Marner, would have made up the differential. They would have scored more, no doubt, but not roughly 19 goals per.
Matthews may be putting up career-highs everywhere
Statistics shouldn't be everything regarding the Hart Trophy, but let’s be real: the last five winners of the award all recorded over 100 points, with last year’s winner, Connor McDavid, ending last season with an astounding 153 points.
Fortunately, Matthews doesn’t need to get anywhere near that number. But he will likely set new milestones in his career stat line, including points, as he is currently on pace to score between 107 and 108.
He’s only four goals from setting a new career-high, and there is also an outside chance he does the same with assists, but he would need to average at least one per game in that category. He needs just three more even strength goals, two more power play goals, and five more game-winners to break new ground in all of his goal-scoring endeavors.
He will also inch closer to his total number of shots on goal, and he’s just 90 faceoff wins from setting a new milestone. Matthews needs just 16 more blocks, three more hits, and 23 takeaways, all of which are manageable with 14 more games on the schedule.
While setting highs in most or all of these areas wouldn’t guarantee Matthews would win the Hart, doing so would help his case since you can expect those in charge of casting the votes to look at the basic stats.
Since he’s well on pace to set new personal bests, especially with the impact it has made on the Maple Leafs, new milestones could very well lead to his second career Hart.
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