The Toronto Maple Leafs officially extended their superstar forward, Auston Matthews, on August 23 with a four-year extension and in doing so gave him the opportunity to legitimize his standing as one of the greatest offensive players in the history of the franchise.
Now, looking ahead to the 2023-24 season with the distraction of a new contract behind him, Matthews will look to open the new year with a milestone goal the first time he puts the puck into the net — a mark that would count as his 300th career regular season tally.
While it’s not quite time to celebrate the 300-goal mark yet for the 25-year-old, his first 299 goals in the NHL’s regular season have some noteworthy numbers attached to them. With that, here’s a look at how his first 299 career goals break down.
Matthews: A Game of Averages in the Clutch
It’s easy to look at the individual awards — including two Rocket Richard trophies — and his goal totals over the first seven years of his NHL career and recognize that Matthews’ goal-scoring ability is one that few others possess. But just how good has been through his first 481 career regular season games?
Well, over that span, the Maple Leafs’ star has averaged 0.62 goals per game — a pace that includes just over a goal every two games to open up his career. Even though his shoot percentage in 2022-23 was the lowest of his career and his pace dropped off slightly, Matthews still maintained an average of 0.54 goals per game.
Now, consider this. Since his rookie season in 2016-17, Matthews has led the entire NHL in goals scored with 299. That’s two more than Alex Ovechkin (297) has had over that span and 12 more than the third highest goal scorer over that span — Connor McDavid (287).
Add to that his ability to get it done at 5v5, Matthews is the top goal scorer over the past three seasons at 5v5 by a long shot. Since the start of the 2020-21 season, Matthews has tallied 92 goals at 5v5, while McDavid sits second on that list with 73.
So let’s break these averages down a little more for some clutch context. Of his 299 career goals, only a quarter of them have come with the man advantage — 25.4 percent to be exact. That means outside of those 76 tucks, his remaining 223 goals have come at even strength.
On top of that, Matthews has 53 game-winning goals over his career, which makes up 17.7 percent of his total goals scored and of those deciding goals, 16.9 percent of them — or nine goals — have come in overtime.
Call it what you will, but Matthews has clearly come up clutch for the Maple Leafs on a number of occasions. But let’s dive a little deeper into when exactly Matthews finds the most success offensively.
The Highs and Lows of Matthews’ Goals
When it comes to linemates, there may be preferences from the fanbase on who they see play with their number one centre, but he’s had relative success with any player that suits up alongside him — which we saw last year when he played a few games alongside Calle Jarnkrok.
His 299 goals have included a total of 504 assists from 44 different players since 2016-17. Of those, 36 players have record at least one primary assist with six players having 16 or more primary assists.
Of course, Mitch Marner leads the way with 99 assists on Matthews’ goals, while William Nylander isn’t far behind with 72. The two are also separated by just two primary assists with Marner leading the way again with 54. Can you name the other 42 players to have recorded assists over the span of Matthews’ career?
Related: Maple Leafs Need Playmaker Like Nylander Moving Forward
Aside from the helpers, Matthews has a favourite month and a least favourite month. He even has a favourite day of the week — albeit a day in which the Maple Leafs have played a high number of games over the length of his career.
February seems to be a fire starter for the Arizona native who has scored 55 goals in the month over his career. That makes up for 18.4 percent of his total regular season goals. On the contrary, May has seen Matthews tuck just five goals for just under two percent of his total career goals — a slower month for the NHL, naturally.
As for Saturdays, Matthews has 80 goals when the weekend kicks off in 137 games. That total makes up nearly 27 percent of his total output.
On top of that, like any sniper, he has his favourite teams to light up around the league as well. While Matthews has scored against all of the other 31 teams in the NHL, his favourites are obviously the Maple Leafs’ division rivals — the Montreal Canadiens and Ottawa Senators. He’s scored 23 goals against both of those clubs, accounting for just over 15 percent of his total. As for the Los Angeles Kings, they’ve only surrendered four goals to Matthews over his career, albeit in just 11 games.
Matthews Has Some Unique Wrist Work
Finally, it’s always interesting to see just how a sniper puts the puck in the net. Is it by using the old reliable wrist shot or are they clapping it from the top of the circle like Ovechkin? So, here’s how it breaks down for the Maple Leafs’ star.
Nearly 57 percent of his goals have come off the old reliable wrister. Whether it was a toe-drag or down the wing, Matthews has easily been one of the most lethal shooters since he came into the league.
From there, there’s a major drop-off to 41 goals coming by way of the snap shot until we finally hit the wrap-around that makes up for just five of his 299 career goals. While he’s seen a slight increase in tip-ins and deflections over the past couple of seasons, it’s clear that when it comes to his unreadable release, Matthews prefers to go back to his trusty wrist shot.
Could Matthews Ever Catch Ovechkin?
The simple answer is that one day Matthews could potentially make a run for what will eventually be Ovechkin’s goal record. But we can’t predict lockouts and injuries, world pandemics or anything of that sort. So, there is no real simple answer to that question. But, consider the numbers where they stand right now.
At the age of 25 years and 328 days old, Ovechkin had 301 career regular season goals in the NHL. At the exact same age, Matthews was sitting at 299 — two shy of the player who is expected to break Wayne Gretzky’s all-time record.
Over his first seven seasons in the NHL, Ovechkin saw seven 82-game seasons. Over that time, he missed 21 total games. His first seven seasons included 339 goals in 553 games and he was scoring at a pace of 0.61 goals per game. Let’s assume that he played those 21 games scoring at the same pace, he’d have had another 12 goals for a total of 351 through seven seasons.
Already in his career, Matthews has played through two shortened seasons thanks to the worldwide pandemic and missed significant time due to injuries. In fact, over his first seven seasons, he’s played just 481 games with his 299 career goals. As we mentioned off the top, that’s a pace of 0.62 goals per game. Playing the same amount of time as Ovechkin at his scoring pace over his first seven seasons, Matthews would have another 57 goals to his name giving him a total of 356.
Related: Ovechkin, His Milestone Goals & the Goalies He Beat
Obviously that’s all hypothetical, but his scoring pace has been an impressive one through his first seven seasons with the Maple Leafs. Even if he doesn’t catch Ovechkin, there’s a good chance that Matthews — so long as he’s healthy — could become just the fourth player in NHL history to reach 800 career goals. But only time will tell.
For now, he sits just one goal shy of 300 heading into the 2023-24 season with the Maple Leafs and has a new extension in hand as he looks to get back to his scoring ways this coming season.
