Ahead of the Toronto Maple Leafs’ victory over the Washington Capitals, much of the focus centred around two of the greatest goal scorers of all time, Auston Matthews and Alexander Ovechkin. After a slow first half of the season, Ovechkin has started to score more often, reigniting the years-long conversation around his chase of the current NHL record holder Wayne Gretzky.
Though Matthews still has a considerable way to go before reaching striking distance of Gretzky’s record, the fact that his goal scoring pace exceeds Ovechkin’s through their first 500 games provides a reasonable platform for the hypothetical; could Matthews break the record for most NHL goals one day? Let’s take a look at what it would take for Matthews to do so.
Matthews’ pace so far in his career
Through the first eight seasons of Matthews’ career, he has scored at a rate of 0.65 goals per game. Strictly from a numbers perspective, it would take 1,377 games to reach 895 goals at a 0.65 goals-per-game pace. As of Monday, March 25, 2024 Matthews will be 827 games short of that games played mark.
Considering Matthews average of seven missed games per season, it would take Matthews 11 more seasons of scoring at his current rate to pass Gretzky. With the games played target 11 seasons away, Matthews would be 37 years old when passing Gretzky’s career goals mark.
Seeing as Matthews has only played eight NHL seasons so far, presuming sustained success for another 11 seasons is a big assumption. Matthews is at the height of his goal scoring powers, with a great chance to surpass his career-high this season. On top of this, Matthews has already had some relatively modest goal scoring seasons already in his career, meaning that his current goals per game rate might even increase into his early 30s.
There are very few relevant comparables for Matthews’ goal scoring prowess, which makes it difficult to project how his goal scoring rates might hold up over time. Aging affects all players, but often the truly elite talents have the ability to sustain their quality for longer periods of time.
Ovechkin’s goal pace has only started to drop this season, at 38 years old, which is encouraging. In other words, it is not unreasonable to think that Matthews might be able to sustain his goal scoring pace through at least his age-35 season, if not beyond, giving himself a good chance to pass Gretzky and perhaps Ovechkin before turning 40.
Stylistic adversities Matthews may face
There are factors beyond raw rates that might negatively impact Matthews’ pursuit of the goal scoring record. Health is the foremost concern, and perhaps the least predictable. The sheer longevity required to break such a record is far from a given, and relies on not getting injured as well as returning to full effectiveness afterwards. Through their early careers, Matthews has missed more time than Ovechkin, though he has not yet missed enough time to greatly impact these projections.
Some might bring up concerns regarding Matthews style of play lending itself to late career scoring, a factor that will be necessary. Matthews is a far greater contributor to team defence than Ovechkin ever has been, and as a centre, he is burdened with greater responsibilities here. Through his career, Ovechkin has changed his style of play, no longer the hitting machine that he was earlier in his youth. There is a chance that Matthews won’t have the same luxury of changing his style of play to serve the pursuit of the record.
Matthews scores in a more diverse number of ways than Ovechkin does, which could help or hurt his cause for goal scoring longevity. Currently, Matthews’ versatility relies on his ability to find space in a number of different areas on the ice, meaning a loss of mobility could be more detrimental than it is for Ovechkin, who remains a force from a stationary position on the power play. On the other hand, Matthews ability to score from anywhere with very little space might age just as well as Ovechkin’s office on the power play.
It should also be noted that both Gretzky and Ovechkin had won at least one Stanley Cup. Particularly in Ovechkin’s case, this has allowed him to chase the goals record with a narrower focus. Though a lack of a championship would not change the actual number of goals Matthews does end up scoring, it might alter his focus in the late stages of his career.
For his part, Gretzky’s goal scoring dropped off heavily in his late career. Of course, the absurdity lies in that Gretzky, unlike both Matthews and Ovechkin, was more of a playmaker than a goal scorer. His record for most NHL points all time will likely remain unbeaten. In fairness, it should be mentioned that Greztky recorded an additional 46 goals in the WHA. Seeing as this fact is not being brought up in regards to Ovechkin’s chase this should not be a factor in Matthews’.
Providing league context
Another set of factors beyond Matthews’ control is the state of the league over the course of his career. Both Gretzky and Ovechkin had partial seasons of their primes robbed from them due to labour disputes. Avoiding such forced absences will be important for Matthews’ pursuit of the all time goals record. Both Matthews and Ovechkin did miss games amidst the Covid era, so avoiding further worldwide catastrophes would be advantageous as well.
On the other side, the NHL—like most professional sports leagues—is skewing towards favouring offence. Although it is impossible to know the future, it seems a near certainty that the bulk of Matthews career will see a league conducive to offence. The league might not become as goal-happy as it was in the 1980s—something Gretzky certainly enjoyed—but Matthews’ prime should converge with higher league-wide scoring rates than Ovechkin’s prime did.
The bottom line
To summarise, a lot has to go right for Matthews to become the NHL’s all-time leading goal scorer at some point, but as it stands, the mark is feasible. If everything goes according to plan we should see Matthews chasing down either Gretzky or Ovechkin in his late 30s.
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