Toronto Maple Leafs: Auston Matthews Heading Towards 50 in 50

The Toronto Maple Leafs are enjoying a Christmas break after a 4-1 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday night.

The win was highlighted by Toronto Maple Leafs superstar Auston Matthews collecting another two-goal game while also adding an assist for a three-point game.

The former first overall pick has now put together a seven game goal scoring streak, potting an astonishing 12 goals over that time frame. In ten games so far in December, Matthews has a total of 14 goals as he has scored in all but two games and has had six multi goal games in that span.

Matthews has now put himself four goals ahead of second place Brock Boeser who has played five more games this season and five goals against third place Nikita Kucherov while also playing four less games.

The two-time Rocket Richard Trophy winner is just one of four players to reach the 20-goal mark before the Christmas break. Matthews has continued his domination at 5 on 5 hockey recording 20 even strength goals; which means if you took his eight powerplay goals away from him, he would still have more goals than all but three players in the the entire league.

Toronto Maple Leafes Superstar Nearing Historic Numbers

With Matthews nearing the 30-goal mark in almost as many games, you have to wonder if there is a chance at 50-goals in the first 50 games this season. Only five players have ever reached this milestone in the history of the National Hockey League with the last being Brett Hull who completed the task in back-to-back seasons 32 years ago during the 1990-91 and 1991-92 seasons.

During the first year he did it, Hull was on a slightly better pace than Matthews as he had one more goal through 30 games, while the following season he would have identical scoring numbers to Maple Leafs stars current statistics as he sat with 28 goals in 30 games.

To compare his start to his 60-goal season in Matthews 2021-22 year, he had 22-goals through his first 30-games and had not recorded goal number 28 until his 38th game of the season. Though, Matthews did score 50 goals in 50 games that season, it wasn't the first 50 games of the season.

So the question is whether or not you can start getting excited for the former first overall pick to take a legitimate shot at 50 in 50 and my answer would be is if Matthews can score 10-11 more goals in the next ten games, you can start the hype train as he heads towards the 50 game mark.