He has already won the Maurice Richard Trophy for the best scorer in NHL hockey twice, but now he has shifted his gear even higher. Auston Matthews’ current performances are among the best the North American League has ever offered.
David Pastrňák is having another famous season in Boston. With 36 goals, he is on par with Nikita Kučerov and only three goals behind second-placed Sam Reinhart in the Gunners table.
However, he can hardly think about the Maurice Richard Trophy, an award he won less than four years ago.
The first Matthews missed him by 16 hits. For comparison – the same difference separates Pastrňák and his partner Charlie Coyle, who, thanks to 20 goals, belongs to the tied 47th place in the league.
That’s how much Matthews dominates. In 55 games for the Toronto Maple Leafs, he has already scored 52 goals, including 37 in five-on-five play, where he also has no competition (reinhart is seven goals better in power plays).
The 26-year-old American scored 23 goals with his wrist, one more than Pastrňák. He is also among the top ten in the stroke, the golf ball and the backhand finish.
Perhaps the most impressive thing is that he never helped himself with an easy shot into an empty net.
Lately he seems to have added more. He has scored ten times in the past five games. He recorded two hat-tricks, and he already has six in total this season.
“He is very hungry whenever he steps on the ice. When you think he will definitely score a goal. At the moment he is one of the best, if not the best player in the world. 52 goals in 55 games, that’s crazy, absolutely absurd,” he pointed out Matthews’ partner Max Domi, whose season high in the NHL is 28 hits. He has seven of them in the regular season.
In a competition where reaching the 50-goal mark is considered an extraordinary achievement, Matthews has scored 77 goals.
It would be the first time to beat 70 since 1992/93, when Teemu Selänne and Alexandr Mogilnyj stunned 76 notches.
The league record is held by Wayne Gretzky with 92 hits.
But be careful. The legendary Canadian scored it during the frenzied shootouts. The tables, which adjust the players’ results by the era in which they played, reduce Gretzky’s record performance to 68 goals, just enough for tied for seventh place.
Brett Hull is the best from this recount with 76 wickets (originally 86).
Matthews could come in just behind Hull on this list. Or even surpass it if – as impossible as it seems – he adds more.
“What makes his season even more remarkable and unprecedented is the fact that Matthews is scoring so many goals and defending like a greaser – he’s a legitimate candidate for the Selke Trophy (award for the NHL’s best defensive forward – editor’s note),” pointed out online newspaper The Athletic.
“Hull, Ovechkin, Lemieux, Gretzky, these guys weren’t like that. Nobody was like that,” author Jonas Siegel added.
Matthews’ current performances are historically unique.
2024-02-24 13:22:55
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