Auston Matthews has more goals and a higher gpg than Ovechkin age for age. And the gap is about to grow. Can he also make a run at 894?

[DitchMarner]

I don't get the feeling he's going to have a huge goal scoring season this year. I see him scoring about 40-45 goals. He looked like he was "back" when he put up three goals in two games against CHI and NSH (two bad teams) but didn't look very dangerous against WSH (a good defensive team) and PIT (not a good defensive team).

He's a guy who goes on heaters and makes goal scoring look like a walk in the park when he's hot. I think he'll be that way for a while longer, but I don't see him aging well enough as a goal scorer to end up with close to 900 goals. He's a shooter who can score goals from the dirty areas. He's not a guy who dekes around players or crashes the net. He can score on slapshots and one-timers, but he's not a big PP one-time threat.

When he's in his mid 30s, I don't see him being able to score with the kind of consistency that he'll need to threaten the goal record. He's also fairly injury-prone for an elite player and that won't make challenging the record any easier.

 

[BallardEra]

I don't get the feeling he's going to have a huge goal scoring season this year. I see him scoring about 40-45 goals. He looked like he was "back" when he put up three goals in two games against CHI and NSH (two bad teams) but didn't look very dangerous against WSH (a good defensive team) and PIT (not a good defensive team).

He's a guy who goes on heaters and makes goal scoring look like a walk in the park when he's hot. I think he'll be that way for a while longer, but I don't see him aging well enough as a goal scorer to end up with close to 900 goals. He's a shooter who can score goals from the dirty areas. He's not a guy who dekes around players or crashes the net. He can score on slapshots and one-timers, but he's not a big PP one-time threat.

When he's in his mid 30s, I don't see him being able to score with the kind of consistency that he'll need to threaten the goal record. He's also fairly injury-prone for an elite player and that won't make challenging the record any easier.

It doesn't look good at the moment. It seems like they're trying to avoid surgery at all costs by looking at alternative treatment/methods.

 

[bobholly39]

It's too bad for injuries. This is of course always the x factor, especially any big injury, which seems to be the case at the moment (big/nagging, either way it's lasting).

I still feel super confident he will surpass 800 goals major injuries aside. ~5-10 games missed per year, and no big impact to his style of play, and he hits it. Of course with major injuries, or major impact on his ability (shot, wrist issues etc) that would change things.

 

[Midnight Judges]

Longevity is underrated in hockey fandom.

 

[MadLuke]

Longevity is underrated in hockey fandom.

maybe but if Sakic, Messier or Yzerman decline completletly or retire at 25 they are seen completely differently, doing a lot of relevant hockey tend to be highly rated and tend to be correlated with longevity (a Lafleur-Dryden is a lucky exception to be able to in 7 years more than 99% of athlete will do in 20 or Orr-Lemieux-Bure-Forsberg so good to make a lot happen)