The Toronto Maple Leafs are just 36 games into the 2023-24 season, while their star forward Auston Matthews has suited up for 35 of those contests. But on January 3, as the Maple Leafs were taking on the Anaheim Ducks in Anaheim, Matthews became the first player in the NHL this season to hit the 30-goal mark scoring the overtime winner against Ducks’ goalie Lukáš Dostal.
The goal was Matthews’ first game-winner of the season and capped off a comeback win in which the Maple Leafs peppered Dostal with 57 shots. In fact, it seemed quite fitting that Matthews would score the winner given that he finished the game with 13 shots on goal and 20 shot attempts.
Matthews Chasing Down the Rocket Richard
The goal on Wednesday was his 30th goal of the season and — aside from helping the team win — it increased Matthews’ overall lead in the goal department when it comes to the NHL race.
The marker made Matthews the first to that milestone this season with Nikita Kucherov (27), Sam Reinhart (24) and Brock Boeser (24) looking to chase him down. Meanwhile Matthews is hunting down his third Rocket Richard Trophy this season as the NHL’s leading goal scorer after earning the award in 2020-21 and again in 2021-22.
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If he were to continue his pace, Matthews would become the second active player with three Rocket Richards during his career, behind only Alex Ovechkin, who won the award eight times.
It’s the eighth time Matthews has tallied 30 goals in a season, having done so in each of his first eight seasons in the league. Through 516 games in his career, he’s scored 329 goals — a pace that has him scoring at a rate of 0.64 goals per game.
Matthews Has Been a Goal-Scoring Machine
As for this season, he’s scoring at a clip of 0.86 goals per game, a number that puts him on pace for 69 goals this season if he doesn’t miss any more time. It would also eclipse his prior career-high of 60 that he scored back in 2021-22.
Matthews sits fifth all-time within the Maple Leafs’ organization in goals and he’s now just four goals from passing Ron Ellis for fourth all-time on the franchises list. There’s no question that he’ll surpass Ellis soon — the bigger question is whether or not he can set a new career high this season.
