Matthews the only player who can beat Gretzky record goal?

[Craig Button]

Going to be hard with only 3 years left in Toronto

Yeah, but the GM’s of HFB say he’s overrated and isn’t a top 10 Center in the league.

So which Team will offer him a contract greater than 12M?

 

[McNuge]

Pretty weak case and typical of Matthews haters. Matthews has been the best even strength scorer since he entered the league, that is a fact. A Rocket threat his whole career and has already pretty much won this one.

What would make people think the best even strength scorer who got 40 as a rookie might rival Ovechkin? Maybe compare his career goal rate to Ovies

If you're asking questions like that I have to ask, what makes you think you understand hockey at all? It's a no brainer common sense comparison. Ovie is fading, who do you look to? The next guy.

I find it shocking people would rather look like idiots than admit the obvious.....

Just for the sake of argument I'll say Matthews hits 60 goals over the course of this year. Look at their first 5 seasons in the league. Ovi has 269 goals over that span and Matthews has 218 (that's me factoring in that he hits 60 goals over this season).

You're arguing about breaking a goal record. You're even strength numbers, 5v5 numbers, p/pg, p/60 mean absolutely nothing. We are talking about raw totals.

Matthews hasn't been able to stay healthy while Ovechkin seems to never get hurt. Call people haters all you want and claiming people don't watch hockey is ridiculous when you try to bring in even strength stats to try and argue against RAW point totals. Game also has this thing called a powerplay where great goal scorers have always roasted teams, and none have been better at it than Ovi.

Get a grip

 

[Buck Naked]

Does pace count as breaking the record?

 

[BlueBaron]

First 5 seasons Ovechkin was at 0.68 goals per game and Matthews 0.59 so I'm not sure how it "compares well".

Even strength totals. I think you will find his current totals overall line up better now that he gets proper powerplay time. I mean what's the rate of the next guy and then tell me who else should be compared to Ovie? You get that a difference of .08 goals a game is only 6 and a half goals over a season right? Considering almost no early powerplay time that compare amazingly. How can you not see that?

 

[bobholly39]

Isn’t ovies pace like +100 goals or something by 23?

Ovechkin had 219 goals after his age 23 seasons.
Matthews will have around ~200 (193 today).

He's actually quite close. If it wasn't for Covid last year and this year, I could easily see Matthews doing ~+20 goals to match him.

Matthews did play 5 seasons to Ovechkin's 4, but Matthews started at an earlier age so it should be a net advantage for him. Matthews is scoring now at a similar pace to Ovi's best peak seasons ~55-60 goals pace for 2 years running now. So essentially - it all comes down to what he does moving forward.

Where Ovechkin is untouchable isn't so much his peak (65 goals) - it's really what he did at ages 27+. 7 rockets in 8 years.