Auston Matthews 69 goals in 81 games, most goals scored since Lemieux in 1995-96

[hoglund]

He missed his set up man for too many games when Marner was hurt and Keefe rarely had him on the ice when the opposing team pulled their goalie.

 

[leafsfan5]

His 70th goal of the year will be the series winner vs Boston. Smart man for saving it.

If we get to a position where we can win the series with Matthews scoring 0 goals I will be shocked

Would be hilarious though

 

[hatterson]

Resurrecting this post:

Matthews ended up with 18 2+ goal games. Those 18 games, he had 42 goals. The other 63 games, he had 27. It was 35-goal pace.

He ended up with a goal in 45 games, meaning he scored in 55.6% of the games he played.

Let me say this here and now: what Matthews did was still spectacular. It's a top-20 all-time performance in a season. If he'd have scored like other guys in the 70+ club generally did, he probably would have been in the mid-70s. But what ultimately did him in was that he scored his goals in bunches, and when he wasn't scoring 2+ goals he wasn't scoring as many goals as he needed. Hence, my comment: how he was going toward 70+ in a season was different from everyone else had done it. And I suspect at some point he'll admit those last 2 games he was thinking about 70 too much and it impacted how he was shooting.

Still ... hell of a season. I'd like to see him make another run at 70, with some more consistency in scoring goals across the season, and see if he can get and then exceed it.

I wanted to see how this compared to OV and Stamkos in their high scoring seasons. I grabbed all of the seasons in which Ovechkin scored >=50 and the three seasons Stamkos scored or paced at 50+

For both Ovechkin and Stamkos, their highest scoring season also came in their highest "82 game pace outside of multi goal games" seasons. In Stamkos' case it's hard to say much more about how consistent outside of that season he is since it's only a sample size of 2 other seasons (one being only 37 games) but he was at 38 in his 60 goal season and 33 in his other 2. For Ovechkin however, that stat seems fairly random (within a range). He was at 40 in his 65 goal season but posted everything from 29 to 36 on other seasons.

Matthews on the other had has 35 this season but was at 36, 37, 42, and 36 the previous 4 seasons. He also just completed his third season scoring in more than 55% of the games he played. Ovechkin only once surpassed that mark and that was in his 65 goal campaign.

Also worth nothing that Mogilny hit 76 scoring in only 55.8% of his games(effectively identical to Matthews) and having a 29 goal 82 game pace outside of multi goal games. In that season Mogilny scored an insane 57 goals in 24 multi goal games and then 20 goals in the other 53 games he played. Compared to Matthews with 42 in 18.

Since he picked up his scoring pace around 19-20 (350 games spanning 5 seasons) Matthews has scored in a higher percentage of his games than basically any player in NHL history who didn't play in the 80s has been able to put up over even a couple back to back seasons.


On a somewhat unrelated note it looks like the game logs on ESPN for Ovechkin's rookie season aren't fully accurate as they only list 51 goals despite him being credited with 52. The same with his sophomore season. I assume at one point a goal got reassigned on league review and the ESPN box scores were never updated, so that changes those two seasons every so slightly, but not enough to matter and plus his sophomore season was "only" 45 goals anyway so I ignored it.

 

[BTP]

Anyone who watched this game and still thinks 100 assists is more impressive than 70 goals is crazy.

With the assists its 1 guy passing to 4 people, increased probability of 4 people scoring VS 4 people feeding the puck to ONE guy. Its much easier to stop.

69 goals. 20 Posts. 2 Disallowed goals.

f***ing beastly

 

[Dr Pepper]

Anyone who watched this game and still thinks 100 assists is more impressive than 70 goals is crazy.

With the assists its 1 guy passing to 4 people, increased probability of 4 people scoring VS 4 people feeding the puck to ONE guy. Its much easier to stop.

69 goals. 20 Posts. 2 Disallowed goals.

f***ing beastly

If it was "much easier", stands to reason there wouldn't just be five NHLers, in the history of the league, who've managed to do it.

69 goals is incredibly impressive as well of course, not to take anything away from Matthews. And if Kuch had similarly failed to hit his number yesterday he would still have put up some phenomenal numbers.

Not really worth mentioning the "20 posts and 2 disallowed goals" though, y'know? Could do that with anyone.

Matthews finishes with 69, total, and he should be damn proud of it.

 

[authentic]

Anyone who watched this game and still thinks 100 assists is more impressive than 70 goals is crazy.

With the assists its 1 guy passing to 4 people, increased probability of 4 people scoring VS 4 people feeding the puck to ONE guy. Its much easier to stop.

69 goals. 20 Posts. 2 Disallowed goals.

f***ing beastly

Yes, with just slightly better luck (anyone who watched the game last night would tell you he could've scored 2 or 3 goals easily based on how played) he could be sitting at around a goal per game this season... as a two-way beast with fewer powerplay opportunities than most.

If it was "much easier", stands to reason there wouldn't just be five NHLers, in the history of the league, who've managed to do it.

69 goals is incredibly impressive as well of course, not to take anything away from Matthews. And if Kuch had similarly failed to hit his number yesterday he would still have put up some phenomenal numbers.

Not really worth mentioning the "20 posts and 2 disallowed goals" though, y'know? Could do that with anyone.

Matthews finishes with 69, total, and he should be damn proud of it.

Matthews has the record for posts hit in a season since it's been tracked actually, but I get your point

 

[CupsOverCash]

Well they scored 4 the other night but not one for mathews. Would have thought they would be just trying to get it to him all game. Selfish by his teammates honestly. Amazing season by Mathews.

 

[authentic]

Well they scored 4 the other night but not one for mathews. Would have thought they would be just trying to get it to him all game. Selfish by his teammates honestly. Amazing season by Mathews.

Oh they were trying, he had like 12 shots and a couple posts hit, at some point they realized they were just forcing it too much and scored themselves which I don't blame them for. He had more than enough chances to score a hat trick but he just couldn't quite bury one.

 

[Ol' Jase]

Anyone who watched this game and still thinks 100 assists is more impressive than 70 goals is crazy.

With the assists its 1 guy passing to 4 people, increased probability of 4 people scoring VS 4 people feeding the puck to ONE guy. Its much easier to stop.

69 goals. 20 Posts. 2 Disallowed goals.

f***ing beastly

Again, this makes absolutely no sense, as there have only been 5 players in league history to do it.

 

[SI90]

69 is a great number but man I wanted him to pot 70

 

[Montreal Shadow]

Its much easier to stop.

 

[filinski77]

Amazing season by Matthews! With his 3rd Rocket, and not including Ovechkin, he becomes the first 3x (retro-rocket) winner since Bure in 2001.

 

[Arthur Morgan]

felt like Leafs just tried too hard to get Matthews his 70th. winning those games didnt matter just get him his goal is what it felt like and it was so obvious. easy to shutdown. I feel like if they played their game normally he would have gotten it. or maybe he would have missed anyways. top elite players still do have games where they dont put up points. 69 is still extremely impressive. but its kinda like a joke now

Amazing season by Matthews! With his 3rd Rocket, and not including Ovechkin, he becomes the first 3x (retro-rocket) winner since Bure in 2001.

sorry but what does this even mean? not trying to be a dick or anything. it could be that im stupid lol

Again, this makes absolutely no sense, as there have only been 5 players in league history to do it.

think your in the wrong area man

 

[Ol' Jase]

think your in the wrong area man

Huh? What do you mean?

 

[Arthur Morgan]

Huh? What do you mean?

I didnt back track but I can only assume your saying 100 assists is more impressive than 69? I would agree with that now but if it was 70 Id be closer to 50/50 on who would come out on top. 100 assists has a nicer list but doesnt really mean its overall better.

 

[Ol' Jase]

I didnt back track but I can only assume your saying 100 assists is more impressive than 69? I would agree with that now but if it was 70 Id be closer to 50/50 on who would come out on top. 100 assists has a nicer list but doesnt really mean its overall better.

I haven’t once said one is better than the other. Not once.

“I didn’t read what you said, but I assume you said this”. Are you for real?

 

[WalterLundy]

McDavid 64 was more impressive imo because he was doing it all last year and had the assists to prove as well.

He basically said this year I can score these goals myself or give them all to Hyman. Matthews doesn't have that range to be a threat passing and shooting.

Matthews obviously had the more impressive goal scoring year with actually scoring 69 goals so we must give credit but let’s not forget that McDavid hit 60 goals last year in 72 games. This year Matthews hit 60 goals in 72 games as well in a virtually identical league scoring environment.

McDavid last year at 81 games had 64 goals on 347 shots. Matthews had 69 in 81 games on 369 shots. Shooting percentages of 18.7 to 18.4 marginally in favor of Matthews. Equates to 68 goals for McDavid taking as many shots as Matthews so only a 1 goal difference. The difference statistically is obviously the 50 more assists through 81 games that McDavid had. As overall single seasons McDavid 2023 is clearly better but as purely goal scoring seasons they are honestly very comparable even if Matthews gets the nod.

 

[Arthur Morgan]

I haven’t once said one is better than the other. Not once.

“I didn’t read what you said, but I assume you said this”. Are you for real?

I apologize thought for sure the comment earlier was connected to that. and didnt have time to click on however many posts u 2 been talking

 

[Jocke1]

Being a stat geek I had to check exactly how many shots on goal he had post-69.

Matthews scored his 69th with 29 minutes and 37 seconds remaining of game #80, he had 7 more shots on goal and one missed shot during that time (two wrist shots, one slap shot, three backhand shots, one tip-in shot). The one missed shot was wide right.

5 shots on goal and 5 missed shots in game #81 (three wrist shots, one snap shot and one slap shot - missed shots were four wide of net and one over the net) and 12 shots on goal and 1 missed shot in game #82 (eight wrist shots, one slap shot, two backhand shots and one poke shot - missed shots were one that hit the crossbar).

So that comes to 24 shots on goal without getting that elusive 70th, and 7 missed shots.

 

[Ol' Jase]

I apologize thought for sure the comment earlier was connected to that. and didnt have time to click on however many posts u 2 been talking

All good. After a few select Leaf fans reactions during the McDavid 100th assist thread on Monday, I'm likely more aggressive towards you guys than I need to be.

 

[Arthur Morgan]

All good. After a few select Leaf fans reactions during the McDavid 100th assist thread on Monday, I'm likely more aggressive towards you guys than I need to be.

I get it, our fanbases are very good at getting under each others skin lmao

 

[Wondercarrot]

Anyone who watched this game and still thinks 100 assists is more impressive than 70 goals is crazy.

Well if he hits 70 next year we can debate it.

 

[Coffey]

I get it, our fanbases are very good at getting under each others skin lmao

Which makes no f***ing sense since we are in different conferences.

 

[filinski77]

sorry but what does this even mean? not trying to be a dick or anything. it could be that im stupid lol

Hahah no worries - the Richard trophy was only created in 1999. So whenever I mention the rocket in a historical sense (ie. all-time or far back into the past), I just call it a “retro-rocket”.

Bobby Hull has 0 rocket Richard trophies technically, but he lead the league in goals 7 times. So I’d refer it as having 7 “retro-rockets”

 

[3074326]

Which makes no f***ing sense since we are in different conferences.

Leafs fans see a topic and their first thought is “how can we make this about the Leafs”

Everything else is irrelevant

That being said, congrats on an incredible season to Matthews and to the Leafs fans who got to watch. Insane season.