Do you consider Matthews a 'Generational' player or talent?

[The90]

Source for what?

Auston Matthews first 6 seasons:

Trophy placements:
- Calder: 1
- Harts : 11, 10, 2, 1
- Pearson: 1
- Rocket: 2, 17, 17, 3*, 1, 1
- Art Ross: 20, 58, 42, 9, 5, 6
- Selke: 38, 16, 27, 10
- All star teams: 4, 2, 1

Total stats: 407 GO, 259 goals, 457 points
82gp pace: 52 goals and 92 pts

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Alex Ovechkin first 6 seasons:
Trophy placements:
- Calder: 1
- Harts : 6, 22, 1, 1, 2, 14
- Pearson: 1, 1, 1
- Rocket: 3, 4, 1, 1, 3*, 18
- Art Ross: 3, 13, 1, 2, 3, 7
- Selke: 30, 50, 28
- All star team: 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2

Total stats: 475 GP 301 goals 614 points
82 games pace: 52 goals and 106 pts

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Alex Ovechkin during Matthews career (31yrs +):
Trophy placements:
- Calder: NA
- Harts : 12, 9, 7, 13, 10
- Pearson:
- Rocket: 16, 1, 1, 1, 18, 4
- Art Ross: 23, 11, 15, 18, 64, 16
- Selke:
- All star team: 3, 3, 1, 3, 9, 4
- Conn Smythe: 1

Total stats: 435 games, 255 goals, 446 pts
82 games pace: 48 goals and 84 pts


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Give me a young Ovechkin before young Matthews any day of the week.

Give me past two season Matthews before past 2 seasons Ovechkin any day of the week.

Kinda crazy Matthews is actually matching his goal totals for the first 6 seasons.

Ovechkin was that good coming into the league while Matthews has improved every year to where he’s at now. Different career paths that’ll take another decade + to decipher. Can Matthews continue to produce like ovechkin till he’s pushing 40? Does Matthews have a higher ceiling or is this it?

He needs another decade of 50 goal seasons. Or several more 60 goal seasons to be considered generational in my opinion. So no. Not yet anyways

 

[A1LeafNation]

OV Crosby McD in the cap era only right now.

 

[bobholly39]

Talent is useless if you don't get anything done with it.

Kovalev isn't above Jagr and Lemieux isn't above Howe.

Talent is useless if you don't get anything done with it.

Good thing Lemieux got something done with his though...

 

[WetcoastOrca]

McDavid looks to be on the way to generational given the awards he already has and the fact that he’s generally acknowledged as the best player of this current generation. Rarely there can be two generational players of around the same age but it’s not the norm. Ovechkin challenging Gretzky’s all time goal record is what vaults him into the discussion in addition to the record 9 Rockets and the Art Ross plus challenging for other Art Rosses in other years.
I doubt Matthews can match Ovechkin’s remarkable longevity and durability and awards. Still a superstar though and a very special player who looks like the best goal scorer of this generation. However in general it takes more than being the best goal scorer to be considered a generational player. See Stamkos, Brett Hull, Bossy etc.

 

[Evilo]

So a guy whose forte is scoring goals has ONE single 50 goal season in 6 years and the word generational is already thrown out?

Nah....

 

[Poppy Whoa Sonnet]

Generational to me means best of his "generation" let say about a decade roughly defines a generation. He's second fiddle to McDavid for this generation, but might overtake him when it's all over (like Ovechkin is trying to do to Crosby).

 

[abo9]

Kinda crazy Matthews is actually matching his goal totals for the first 6 seasons.

Ovechkin was that good coming into the league while Matthews has improved every year to where he’s at now. Different career paths that’ll take another decade + to decipher. Can Matthews continue to produce like ovechkin till he’s pushing 40? Does Matthews have a higher ceiling or is this it?

He needs another decade of 50 goal seasons. Or several more 60 goal seasons to be considered generational in my opinion. So no. Not yet anyways

I was humbled by Matthew's goalscoring if I'm being honest. Last time I checked (2 years ago), Matthews still had a great pace but no Ovy-level. Also insane is that Ovechkin from 31 to 37 continues to produce at a 48 goals pace... that longevity is simply unparallaled.

I expect that next year will see Matthews pace for more in his first 7 years than Ovechkin because season 7 is a dud year from Ovechkin.

 

[The90]

I was humbled by Matthew's goalscoring if I'm being honest. Last time I checked (2 years ago), Matthews still had a great pace but no Ovy-level. Also insane is that Ovechkin from 31 to 37 continues to produce at a 48 goals pace... that longevity is simply unparallaled.

I expect that next year will see Matthews pace for more in his first 7 years than Ovechkin because season 7 is a dud year from Ovechkin.

Longevity in terms of health and production too. OV is a beast.

 

[norrisnick]

I was humbled by Matthew's goalscoring if I'm being honest. Last time I checked (2 years ago), Matthews still had a great pace but no Ovy-level. Also insane is that Ovechkin from 31 to 37 continues to produce at a 48 goals pace... that longevity is simply unparallaled.

I expect that next year will see Matthews pace for more in his first 7 years than Ovechkin because season 7 is a dud year from Ovechkin.

Still a 43g adjusted season. To outpace Ovechkin for era adjusted first 7 seasons Matthews needs a 75g season.

And season 8 is where a string of 4 straight and 7 of the next 8 Rockets comes in to play for Alex.

 

[leafsfan5]

So a guy whose forte is scoring goals has ONE single 50 goal season in 6 years and the word generational is already thrown out?

Nah....

Most agree he's not generational but this is insanely disingenuous

COVID has ruined two of his most productive seasons. He was pacing for 55 in 2019-2020, and 65 in 2021. His first full season since then he put up the best scoring performance in a decade (60 in just 73 games)

He likely should have 3 50 goal seasons by now with 2 of them being 60 goal campaigns. Can't fault him for a global pandemic

 

[WetcoastOrca]

Looking at the general consensus of generational players they all have at least one thing in common. All, with the exception of Ovechkin, have won multiple Art Rosses. That even includes Orr as a D. And Ovechkin won one Art Ross and challenged for it in other years when he led the league in PPG.
If Matthews wants to move beyond the best goal scorer of his generation he needs to improve his total points so that he wins an Art Ross and challenges in multiple years. As of yet he has not come close but that could change, as it did with Ovechkin.

 

[Raging Bull]

Holy shit why is HF obsessed with this stupid generational tag?

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

COVID has ruined two of his most productive seasons. He was pacing for 55 in 2019-2020, and 65 in 2021. His first full season since then he put up the best scoring performance in a decade (60 in just 73 games)

He likely should have 3 50 goal seasons by now with 2 of them being 60 goal campaigns. Can't fault him for a global pandemic

Are we sure about that? He hangs out with Justin Bieber and Bieber's known to get up to some questionable antics ...

 

[Evilo]

Most agree he's not generational but this is insanely disingenuous

COVID has ruined two of his most productive seasons. He was pacing for 55 in 2019-2020, and 65 in 2021. His first full season since then he put up the best scoring performance in a decade (60 in just 73 games)

He likely should have 3 50 goal seasons by now with 2 of them being 60 goal campaigns. Can't fault him for a global pandemic

These are just facts.
You can come up with reasons for many players not producing like they could.
Mitch Marner is in the same ballpark in career points.
Is he talked about as generational?

 

[norrisnick]

Holy shit why is HF obsessed with this stupid generational tag?

Because when HF was an actual prospect site that this was just a forum attached to it, 'generational' was the top tier ranking they used.

 

[abo9]

Generational to me means best of his "generation" let say about a decade roughly defines a generation. He's second fiddle to McDavid for this generation, but might overtake him when it's all over (like Ovechkin is trying to do to Crosby).

Imo Ovechkin and Crosby will both be co-generational, the reasons are too different. We've been truly lucky to have seen them drafted back to back, start the same season and play on rival teams.

But, Crosby will go down as generational for his overall elite play his whole career + insane playoff success.

Ovechkin will go down as generational because of his crazy peak, but mostly for his domination of goalscoring over 20 years. And breaking the record if he does.

Still a 43g adjusted season. To outpace Ovechkin for era adjusted first 7 seasons Matthews needs a 75g season.

And season 8 is where a string of 4 straight and 7 of the next 8 Rockets comes in to play for Alex.

Good point. I went with non adjusted goals but for sure, Ovy played in a lower scoring era and this has to be considered too.

matching Ovechkin's raw totals is still impressive as heck. Who else scores at a 52 unadjusted goal pace over a 7 seasons frane?

Fwiw, I'm in the "No" camo in this thread. But Matthews is doing really good things

 

[Three On Zero]

Only Crosby and Ovechkin are generational players currently in the league. McDavid is making a strong case for himself

 

[BHD]

Depends. I'd consider him an elite goal scorer at this point. If he continues to pile up the goals, then perhaps...

 

[WetcoastOrca]

Only Crosby and Ovechkin are generational players currently in the league. McDavid is making a strong case for himself

Agreed. McDavid is the third youngest Hart winner in history. The only two younger winners are Gretzky and Crosby. He’s part of an elite group.

 

[Cats2TheCup]

Not yet. I’d say McDavid is this generations best player. Now if he can challenge some of Ovechkins records over a long career then we could have two generational guys.

If Matthews breaks Ovie records, it would just drastically devalue what ovie has done & be used as evidence to prove that neither were generational. It was just easier to score. And Gretzky would wreck this soft era.

 

[filinski77]

Still a 43g adjusted season. To outpace Ovechkin for era adjusted first 7 seasons Matthews needs a 75g season.

And season 8 is where a string of 4 straight and 7 of the next 8 Rockets comes in to play for Alex.

Yup. It's not a useful stat to just compare "goals at end of x season".

1) Scoring levels have changed (Matthews first 6 seasons were about 3% higher scoring than Ovi's, and his best 3 seasons are about 6.5% higher scoring than Ovi's 'peak') - note that this is a raw league-wide scoring, and could be different if we looked at 10th/20th/30th place scoring finishes. I'd expect it would probably be about the same, or even a bit more in Ovi's favour if done this way.]

-> Plus, Ovechkins, 7-11th seasons will be by far, lower scoring than any period of time Matthews will likely encounter.

2) Ovechkin has had a very unique scoring curve, which is unlikely to be comparable to anyone. If anything, 2013-2016 is Ovechkin's goal-scoring (only) peak. So technically, Matthews being close to Ovi's first 6 years is the easiest part of matching his career. Since history would tell us that goal-scorers generally peak early (and we obviously can't tell yet what the rest of Matthews career will be).

First 6 years: After 6 seasons, they're pretty comparable goal-scoring wise (with a tiny advantage to Ovi), and this is even despite Ovechkin's 6th season being his worst of his career.

After first-6 years: Now, Ovi in his late 20's and early 30's (both of which are historically significantly harder to maintain dominance in), Ovechkin comes through and starts crushing the competition.

 

[TheNumber4]

6th overall in points

3rd overall in points per game, barely behind McDavid and Kuch

#1 goal scorer back to back years

First player to score 60 goals in a season in the last 10 years. On pace to score 60+ goals for 2 consecutive seasons

"never threaten the league in scoring" buddy, he was on pace for 119 points this year, McDavid led the league with 123 in 82 games

Sodium levels at an all time high

Yes. We all remember when Gretzky, Lemieux, Crosby, McDavid were all 6th overall or worse in points during their primes.

 

[Sparksrus3]

Hate the Laughs.Love the player …yes for me

 

[Lavar Ball]

He hasn’t done anything really generational….

1 mvp, that was obviously stolen…. Honestly still feel bad for Mcdavid.

Top 10 player in the league sure, could argue top 5…. But generational is laughable

Almost as laughable as this take

 

[The90]

Yes. We all remember when Gretzky, Lemieux, Crosby, McDavid were all 6th overall or worse in points during their primes.

He’s not wrong though. Everything he said is a verifiable fact