Washington Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin holds the 21st-century record for most goals in a single NHL season with 65 in 82 games during the 2007-08 campaign.
The record was in jeopardy of falling last season due to sensational performances from Connor McDavid (64) and David Pastrnak (61), but this year, Auston Matthews is putting up a serious challenge. The Toronto Maple Leafs superstar scored his 49th goal in 53 games on Monday night and is quickly closing in on Ovechkin’s top mark. As things currently stand, Matthews is on pace for an absurd 75 goals.
The Toronto center has an unlikely fan rooting for him, too. In a Russian-language interview with Sport-Express’ Igor Rabiner, Ovechkin revealed that he is hoping Matthews can eclipse his mark.
“God grant that he beat me,” Ovechkin said as translated via Yandex Translate. “If you look at the current hockey, it has a lot more goals, it is more open. So this can be expected.”
Ovechkin’s perception about scoring being up across the NHL is true. Outside of the league’s top brass saying they want an exciting, growing product on the ice, the stats back up the idea as well.
The Athletic’s Murat Ates and Fluto Shinzawa recently collaborated on a piece about how goaltending in the NHL is as hard now as it has ever been. In their story, the two cite the fact that the leaguewide shooting percentage has gone up every single year from 2013-14 to now. Additionally, the average team has scored over three goals per game for three years in a row for the first time since the run-and-gun late ’80s and early ’90s.
On the same day that Matthews scored his 49th of the season, the Minnesota Wild and Vancouver Canucks played a game with 17 combined goals. Three separate players in the game had hat tricks, the first time that has happened in a game since 1992.
The 2023-24 campaign became the first season to feature multiple days with at least four hat tricks since 2008-09 (4 on Dec. 11, 2008 & March 7, 2009).#NHLStats: https://t.co/wuATxuTB8f pic.twitter.com/RdnyTnGMEj
— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) February 20, 2024
But, none of that makes what Matthews is doing any less impressive. According to data tracked down by The Athletic’s Jonas Siegel, Matthews is on pace for the second-best scoring season of all time when it comes to era-adjusted goals.
If Matthews hits his target this year in era-adjusted tallies (74), only Brett Hull’s 86-goal campaign in 1990-91 which adjusts to 78 markers will be better. Ovechkin’s 2007-08 (72) will sit third, two goals behind Matthews.
Matthews has 348 goals through the first 534 games of his career. At the same point in his career, Ovechkin had 327 goals. The big question for Matthews, who has played all 82 games in a season just once, will be consistency in the later years of his career which Ovechkin mastered.
