Playing in his home state of Arizona, Toronto Maple Leafs center Auston Matthews tallied his 50th and 51st goals of the season on the way to a 6-3 win over the Coyotes.
In doing so, Matthews became the fastest American-born player to reach the 50 goal mark in a season ever and the fastest overall since Mario Lemieux scored exactly 50 in 50 1995-1996.
The overall record still belongs to Wayne Gretzky, whose 50 goals in 39 games in 1981-1982 stand as a record that may never be touched.
Capitals winger Alexander Ovechkin is in the tail end of his chase to catch Gretzky's all-time goal mark of 894, which was once seen as untouchable itself.
It's wild to think that if Ovechkin does catch Gretzky in the next few years, Matthews might be breathing right down his neck for the next decade.
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Contextualizing Auston Matthews' Historic Pace
Matthews has been hands-down the best goal-scorer in the NHL since he entered the league as the first overall pick in 2016.
According to QuantHockey, Matthews has 350 goals in 535 games since his debut. Second most since he entered the league is Ovechkin at 313. Behind Ovechkin, Leon Draisaitl, David Pastrnak, and Connor McDavid all have over 300, but nobody else in the league has more than 258.
For his entire career, Ovechkin averages .599 points per game. Matthews' career mark is well clear of that at .654. In his seventh season, Matthews is already at 350 goals. Ovechkin had 339 after his seventh NHL season. Granted, one of those was shortened due to the 2013 lockout, but we're counting a non-full season for Matthews here as well.
Part of what has made Ovechkin so great is the consistency and longevity that he's brought to goal-scoring, and so Matthews will need a few 50-goal seasons after the age of 30 to threaten Ovechkin's bar, wherever that may end up.
Matthews is also helped by the fact that scoring is up significantly from where it was in the 2010s, though it's still comfortably below large portions of the Gretzky era.
This season alone, Matthews is now 12 goals clear of the league's second-leading scorer, Sam Reinhart of the Florida Panthers. Barring an injury, Matthews has the Rocket Richard in the bag.
It would be the third goal-scoring title of his career, and it's remarkable that he has so quickly and clearly established himself as the most premier goal-scoring threat in the NHL.
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