The NHL’s MVP debate, which was already shaping up to be supercharged, got even more intriguing this past fortnight as the Toronto Maple Leafs’ Auston Matthews vehemently joined the race. Until Matthews went on his recent tear — he needed just nine games to go from 40 goals to 50 and is now back on pace to exceed 70 — the Hart Trophy favorites were the trio of Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon, Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov and Edmonton’s Connor McDavid.
All are having excellent seasons.
But Matthews is in the process of doing something that hasn’t been done in more than three decades in the NHL — score 70 goals in a single season. He is currently on pace for 76, which gives him a cushion when he inevitably goes a game or two without a goal, something that’s bound to happen … eventually.
The last players to reach 70 were Teemu Selanne and Alex Mogilny, back in 1992-93, who had 76 apieces that year. But professional hockey was a completely different animal back then and goaltending far less sophisticated than today.
The fact that no player has come anywhere close to 70 since then speaks to how unique Matthews’ current run actually is.
Matthews scored No. 50 with the first of two in a road game against the Arizona Coyotes on Wednesday night and then added his 52nd when the Maple Leafs romped past the defending Stanley Cup champion Vegas Golden Knights on Thursday. That game against the Coyotes was a meaningful homecoming for Matthews. He grew up in nearby Scottsdale, played hockey in the Junior Coyotes program, and his parents were in the stands, watching the game. When his first goal went in, some fans at the Mullett Arena were cheering “MVP, MVP.”
It’s something you’d naturally expect to hear if the game had been played in Toronto. It rarely happens to a player in a visiting rink, unless there were special circumstances. For context, consider only 14 players have scored 70 or more goals in a single NHL season and 13 of those seasons came between 1981-82 and 1992-93, the highest-scoring era in league history.
GO DEEPER
The elusive chase for 70 goals: Bernie Nicholls did it and thinks Auston Matthews can, too
Anytime a player happens to score 70, a lot of things have to go right for him. In Matthews’ case, against the Coyotes, the second goal deflected in off his body and caromed into the net. A true fluke. But there really haven’t been many of those thus far this season.
Here’s something else to consider: Matthews isn’t padding his goal-scoring stats with empty netters. Thus far, of his 52 goals, not even one has gone into the empty net. Thirty-seven have been at even strength, 15 on the power play. For a point of comparison, MacKinnon is next in even-strength goals with 26, Kucherov has 24, McDavid has 15.
According to the researchers at #NHLStats, of the 14, 70-goal seasons in NHL history, only two players got to that mark without scoring an empty-net goal. The first was Phil Esposito, back in 1970-71. That year, the Bruins only scored four empty-net goals and Esposito assisted on two of them. The other was Brett Hull. In each of Hull’s three 70-goal seasons he never once scored into an empty net. In all, Hull scored a total of 12 empty-net goals in his career. The most empty-net goals in a 70-goal season were seven from Mario Lemieux in 1988-89. Wayne Gretzky had six in 1983-84.
In effect, Matthews is doing it the hard way.
The Hart Race
What makes the Hart Trophy discussion so complicated is the actual definition of the award. The Hart officially goes to the player “adjudged to be the most valuable to his team.”
This differs from the wording for the Ted Lindsay Award, voted on by the players themselves, and given to the “most outstanding” player in the league. In effect, one’s for most valuable. The other is for most outstanding. A small, but nuanced difference.
In the past, what often hurts the candidacy of one player is if he happens to play with, or alongside, a teammate who’s…
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