Where Does Auston Matthews Rank For You As A Goal Scorer All Time?

[MadLuke]

Only issue I have with him is the 22 goals in 50 playoff games, not bad at all, a 36 goal by 82 pace.

But that almost all first round hockey, almost all in a relatively high scoring league, 13th in goal per games for players with 30 or more games since he entered the league. Nothing special for one of the great, not that big of a deal but with his regular season debut being one of the very best, he enter the conversation with the best of best and we start at looking at everything (you should see the breakdown of Bossy/Gretzky goalscoring versus good or bad teams)

Ovechkin did not had great team success in the playoff but he was still third after 58 games-2013 seasons among those with 25 games or more in goal per game, first among those with 30+ games.

Not many had a better career start in scoring goals per game played than Matthews, arguably none clearly beat him in that regard... in the regular season at least.

 

[MXD]

Some people named Bure and Lafleur...

There's a pretty decent claim to be made that he'll pass them both this season as goalscorers. Guy Lafleur was mostly an all-rounder, while Bure's longevity advantage over Matthews is quickly disappearing; by next season, if Matthews doesn't suffer a significant injury, the gap in games played between Bure and Matthews will mostly be Bure's time with the Rangers.

The big issue, with Lafleur at least, is that, well, there's something to be said for being the playoffs goalscoring leader.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Only issue I have with him is the 22 goals in 50 playoff games, not bad at all, a 36 goal by 82 pace.

But that almost all first round hockey, almost all in a relatively high scoring league, 13th in goal per games for players with 30 or more games since he entered the league. Nothing special for one of the great, not that big of a deal but with his regular season debut being one of the very best, he enter the conversation with the best of best and we start at looking at everything (you should see the breakdown of Bossy/Gretzky goalscoring versus good or bad teams)

Ovechkin did not had great team success in the playoff but he was still third after 58 games-2013 seasons among those with 25 games or more in goal per game, first among those with 30+ games.

Not many had a better career start in scoring goal than Matthews, arguably none clearly... in the regular season at least.

Agreed. If the question is "which players have been the best/greatest goal scorers over the first eight years of their career", Matthews ranks very high. Definitely in the top ten, and possibly in the top five.

Mike Bossy is generally ranked around 6th-8th all-time (as a goal-scorer). It seems pretty clear that Matthews hasn't passed him yet. They have the same number of goal-scoring titles. But Bossy has more years as a top five or top ten goal-scorer. Bossy was more consistent (nine consecutive top ten finishes for Bossy vs four top ten finishes in seven seasons for Matthews). Bossy scored significantly more goals (even after adjusting for era - which we should be doing). And Bossy was by far the better goal-scorer in the playoffs.

Matthews' potential is high, but there are too many other players who have had similar primes, but with far more longevity and far more than 22 goals in the playoffs. Without putting together a full list, my guess is he'd be around 20th all-time today.

 

[PaulD]

Best Goal scorers of "all time"
Any young gun not even half way through his career is not yet on my " all time " list.

"Soon to be" list projections ? There are a few young candidates in the league now. Matthews certainly leading those guys.

But so was Lindros, Bure , among others after the first 7 1/2 seasons of their careers.

 

[MadLuke]

Mike Bossy is generally ranked around 6th-8th all-time (as a goal-scorer).

Mike Bossy (because of the short career, fast early start, etc...) will be a nice regular season benchmark for Matthews soon, Bossy will retire "in 2 years" I think.

After 8 seasons, Bossy had a fantastic
474 goals in 609 games, 2 Rocket

Bossy:

1977-78 NHL 0.73 (2nd)

1978-79 NHL 0.86 (1st)

1979-80 NHL 0.68 (5th)

1980-81 NHL 0.86 (2nd)

1981-82 NHL 0.80 (2nd)

1982-83 NHL 0.76 (3rd)

1983-84 NHL 0.76 (3rd)

1984-85 NHL 0.76 (4th)

1-2-2-2-3-3-4-5

1977-78 NHL 53 (2nd)

1978-79 NHL 69 (1st)

1979-80 NHL 51 (5th)

1980-81 NHL 68 (1st)

1981-82 NHL 64 (2nd)

1982-83 NHL 60 (3rd)

1983-84 NHL 51 (7th)

1984-85 NHL 58 (3rd)

1-1-2-2-3-3-5-7

most goal in the RS
Bossy: 474
Gretzly: 429
Dionne: 397
Middleton: 324
McDonald: 323

per game at least 250 games:
Gretzky: .91
Bossy: .78
Dionne: .65
Kurri: .64
Stoughton: 0.6

Matthews:

2016-17 NHL 0.49 (5th)

2017-18 NHL 0.55 (2nd)

2018-19 NHL 0.54 (7th)

2019-20 NHL 0.67 (4th)

2020-21 NHL 0.79 (1st)

2021-22 NHL 0.82 (1st)

2023-24 NHL 0.88 (1st)

1-1-1-2-4-5-7

Goals

2016-17 NHL 40 (2nd)

2019-20 NHL 47 (3rd)

2020-21 NHL 41 (1st)

2021-22 NHL 60 (1st)

2023-24 NHL 37 (1st)

1-1-1-2-3

2016-2017 to today
Matthews: 336
Drai: 307
Pastrnak: 305
Ovechkin: 305
McDavid: 303

Matthews: .64
Pastrnak: .57
Ovechkin: .56
Draisaitl: .54
McDavid: .54

Bossy outscored the 5th best pace by 30% (5th best Canadian pace by 35%) , Matthews by 18.5% (5th best Canadian pace by 45%).

Easy to give it to the guy that played the games, scored the goals and scored 17 three time in a row his way to the cup in the playoff for now, but per game in the RS not that clear, even if we remove Gretzky.

Early like that, I feel like the conversation should maybe stay after 8th season if he win the Rocket this year... the Selanne-Richard-Brett Hull-Robitaille of the world, played a long time, playoff, intl, etc....

 

[Mirka the Turka]

1. Ovechkin
2. Matthews (if current pace continues)
3. Gretzky

 

[daver]

As a goalscorer, I give him 8 awkward-looking moustaches (out of 10).

 

[Strangle]

Matthews has had a great start to his career. Not quite Bossy level, not Gretzky level, he’s got to be behind Hull as a pure goal scorer (better all around player, but behind in goal scoring)

He’s a more complete Ovechkin level goal scorer so far.

Ovechkin ends up pulling away (likely) due to longevity, but would have to see how the back half of Matthews career goes.

So I’d put Matthews with Ovechkin currently. I’d have put stamkos there for a few short years too, but that didn’t last long

 

[ValeriKamensky]

IIRC his goals per game are better than ovechkin has at same stage of career

 

[nturn06]

IMO you’re setting yourself up for massive disappointment if you’re expecting Ovi-like longevity from any player. What Ovechkin did post-30 as a goal scorer has no precedent.

Matthews has it in him to clear 600 goals and pass 700. To me, if he gets to that upper bound, I’ll likely see him as Top 5. Where he sits more precisely than that I can’t say yet.

Edit: as to right now? It’s really hard to say. Top 20-ish? There’s too much still in front of him.

I thought that the measuring stick was 34 goals seasons, not 30 goals

 

[MXD]

IIRC his goals per game are better than ovechkin has at same stage of career

If you take the full 7 1/2 years, I suppose Matthews had a somewhat "better" scoring environment though.

 

[TheStatican]

No one is catching Ovechkin and Gretzky.

Why not? People said that about Gretzky and yet here we are. Heck Jagr would be right up there too if not for his 3-year defection to the KHL.

He's been on the decline for 2 years now.

60 Goal season, followed by a 50% decline to 40 goals and now, he hasn't even hit 40 goals yet.

The end is just around the corner for his offensive production.

As has been predicted now for 12 months.

So a player in the middle of the best goal scoring season the NHL has seen in 30 years is somehow also on "the decline"

I have him sitting about 175th.

NHL & WHA Career Leaders and Records for Goals | Hockey-Reference.com

1. Wayne Gretzky (894), 2. Alex Ovechkin (868), 3. Gordie Howe (801), 4. Jaromír Jágr (766), 5. Brett Hull (741), 6. Marcel Dionne (731), 7. Phil Esposito (717), 8. Mike Gartner (708), 9. Mark Messier (694), 10. Steve Yzerman (692)

www.hockey-reference.com

Yeah... Still hasn't proven himself to be better than the likes of Scott Young, Dave Christian and Mike Foligno, amirite?

 

[PB37]

All time, hard to say. His career isn't quite at it's halfway point yet; I don't see how you can make draw any comparisons to all time greats.

With that said, he's the best goal scorer of the past 8 years, which is close to a decade of elite production. I think that means a lot and looks favorably for him when his career accomplishments get tallied up when it's over. He has a shot at 500 goals by the time he's 30, which is ridiculous.

 

[Jetcetera]

Around 200

 

[Dust]

Why not? People said that about Gretzky and yet here we are. Heck Jagr would be right up there too if not for his 3-year defection to the KHL.


So a player in the middle of the best goal scoring season the NHL has seen in 30 years is somehow also on "the decline"


Yeah... Still hasn't proven himself to be better than the likes of Scott Young, Dave Christian and Mike Foligno, amirite?

Give him a few days, he'll pass them soon enough

 

[ACLEVERNAME]

Where do you even come up with this stuff

I watch games/follow the league and form an opinion.

 

[mphmiles]

The game changes so much every generation (every 10-15 years) I think all you can really do is compare players to the guys that they played against.

To this point Matthews is the best goal scorer of his generation by a pretty decent margin. If he keeps it up for another 7-10 years, he should be top 5 all time in that category, but he has to actually do that first.

 

[lipstickjunkie]

All time, hard to say. His career isn't quite at it's halfway point yet; I don't see how you can make draw any comparisons to all time greats.

With that said, he's the best goal scorer of the past 8 years, which is close to a decade of elite production. I think that means a lot and looks favorably for him when his career accomplishments get tallied up when it's over. He has a shot at 500 goals by the time he's 30, which is ridiculous.

With good health he will easily hit 500 before his 30th birthday.
He will likely only be about 130 goals away after this season, and will have three more full seasons to get there.

 

[zappa4ever]

The game changes so much every generation (every 10-15 years) I think all you can really do is compare players to the guys that they played against.

To this point Matthews is the best goal scorer of his generation by a pretty decent margin. If he keeps it up for another 7-10 years, he should be top 5 all time in that category, but he has to actually do that first.

Do you know how big an "IF" that is?

The list of players that managed to keep that pace for the back half of their career in the entire history of the NHL is 1 person.
OV

With Matthews averaging like 10gms missing every season, the odds of keeping up a .64g/gm well into his 30's is not good

 

[Connor McConnor]

His pure goal scoring is top 10 already but he’s just not as dynamic a player as someone like Ovi.

 

[eramosat]

he's a great scorer. but his biggest fans can be annoying in how persistent they are in seeking validation in their belief in how great he is, which brings him down to good.

 

[Staniowski]

Matthews is certainly one of the best goal-scorers ever. He's a beautiful, pure scorer, like Bossy, Lemieux, Bure, Krutov, Maurice Richard.

Matthews is a better goal-scorer than guys like Howe, Lafleur, Gretzky, Yzerman, Crosby, McDavid.

 

[PB37]

Matthews is certainly one of the best goal-scorers ever. He's a beautiful, pure scorer, like Bossy, Lemieux, Bure, Krutov, Maurice Richard.

Matthews is a better goal-scorer than guys like Howe, Lafleur, Gretzky, Yzerman, Crosby, McDavid.

Better goal scorer than the guy who has the most goals of all time...?

 

[Sasha Orlov]

Matthews is certainly one of the best goal-scorers ever. He's a beautiful, pure scorer, like Bossy, Lemieux, Bure, Krutov, Maurice Richard.

Matthews is a better goal-scorer than guys like Howe, Lafleur, Gretzky, Yzerman, Crosby, McDavid.

Good joke man

 

[Pablo El Perro]

Jagr Bure Forsberg Kane Hull tier but just below the Gretzky Howe Lemieux Richard tier

Where's Bossy?