For the week ending April 14, Auston Matthews‘ performance garnered league-wide attention as he earned the nod as the NHL’s First Star of the Week. He’s joined by Roman Josi as the second star, and Nazem Kadri as the third star.
Matthew’s week was pure goal-scoring dominance
Matthews kicked off the week having just scored his 100th point of the season and had his eyes set on catching Alex Ovechkin‘s salary-cap era goal-scoring record of 65 goals. He tied Ovechkin, then passed him outright by scoring his 66th goal of the campaign. Matthews didn’t stop there though.
In four total appearances this past week, Matthews scored five goals and two assists, where his five-goal total pushes his season threshold to a nice 69 goals. This tied him with Mario Lemieux‘s mark from 1995–96 as the last time anyone’s scored 69 goals in a season. Matthews will have two more games to go for the Big 70 as the Toronto Maple Leafs face off against the Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning in a quick back-to-back set in Florida to close out their regular season.
Matthews can keep rising
Right now, Matthew’s mark of 69 goals has him tied with Lemieux (2x) and Mike Bossy for 15th most goals in a single season. If Matthews can score his 70th, he’ll jump to a tie for 12th; his 71st would push him into a tie for 10th, and any more goals than that puts him right into the single-digit rankings for most goals in a single season of all-time.
We’ll soon see just how much more Matthews has left in his tank before the playoffs start.
