Matthews on the rampage again! 6. he blew Anaheim away with a hat trick, and set a new Maple Leafs club record

American hockey forward Auston Matthews scored a hat trick for the sixth time this season. This time it was Anaheim, who got beaten 2:9 by Toronto. Matthews also recorded two assists in the game, bringing his total to 5 points.

Matthews on the verge of 50 goals scored this season

The Toronto team dominated from the start of the game and the best scorer of this season did not spare his opponent at all. When he wasn’t scoring goals, he was setting them up. Thanks to the five points he scored in tonight’s game, he has already moved up to sixth in the Canadian scoring with 71 points on 48 goals and 23 assists.

However, he has absolutely no competition in the scorers’ table. He’s now at 48 goals and is on his way to his third Maurice Richard Trophy, which is awarded to the top scorer of the regular season. The second place is taken by Sam Reinhart of the Florida Panthers, who is already in the form of his life with 9 goals.

Matthews sets a new Maple Leafs club record

In addition, Matthews made an indelible mark in the Toronto Maple Leafs’ annals with his sixth hat trick of the season. Not only did he record his second straight hat trick. In the previous game, he contributed to the victory in Philadelphia with his fifth hat trick of the season.

Today, he broke the records set by Darryl Sittler (1980/81), Babe Dye (1924/25) and Reg Noble (1917/18). They held the Maple Leafs club record with 5 hat tricks in a single season.

However, that record now belongs unquestionably to an American hockey player, who also has plenty of games left to add to that record. His best season as a scorer was the 2021/22 season, when he scored a total of 60 goals. Now he is on the verge of a second 50-goal season.

He has never scored fewer than 34 goals since entering the NHL. He has therefore surpassed the 30-goal mark in each of his 8 seasons in the NHL.

Breaking the 70-goal mark may not be utopia

The topic of scoring 70 goals in a single season has been a hot topic in the NHL. Given that Matthews is playing in the form of his life. His personal record of 60 goals in a season is taken as a very realistic one to break. But the question arises whether he will become the first hockey player to break the 70 accurate hits mark since the 1992/93 season.

The last time Alexander Mogilnyj and Teemu Selanne broke that mark. They scored 76 goals in the 1992/93 season. In this millennium, only Alexander Ovechkin in 2007/08, who scored 65 goals, and Connor McDavid last season with 64 goals, have come close.

Matthews is the fourth-leading scorer in franchise history with 347 goals and it’s only a matter of time before he overtakes Mats Sundin.

Source: NHL