Auston Matthews has joined a very exclusive club.
With his goal in the first period of the Toronto Maple Leafs’ game with the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday, Matthews recorded 50 goals in a 50-game span. He also scored again in the first, giving him 51 goals over this stretch.
Only eight players had accomplished the 50-in-50 feat in NHL history. Matthews is the ninth.
Maurice Richard, Mike Bossy, Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, and Brett Hull are the official 50-in-50 scorers. Jari Kurri, Alexander Mogilny, Cam Neely, and now Matthews are known as unofficial 50-in-50 seasons, as the NHL requires a player to have scored his 50th goal in or prior to his team’s 50th game.
The first 50-in-50 was Richard, who did so 1944-45 and, in the process, became the first player ever to score 50 goals in an NHL season.
Mike Bossy did it in 1980-81 and then, the following season, Wayne Gretzky scored 50 goals in 39 games. Gretzky recorded an official 50-in-50 season three times in his career, all told. Lemieux scored 54 goals in 50 games in 1988-89 and then had two more unofficial 50-in-50 performances in 1992-93 and 1995-96. Hull accomplished the feat in back-to-back seasons in 1990-91 and 1991-92.
Kurri scored 50 goals in 50 games in 1984-85 but it was his team’s 53rd game of the season, Mogilny scored 50 goals in 46 games in 1992-93 but it was the team’s 53rd game, and Neely scored 50 goals in 44 games in 1993-94 but it was the team’s 66th game.
Matthews reached 50 goals in 50 games but it was Toronto’s 72nd game of the year, as Matthews missed time at the beginning of the season after undergoing offseason wrist surgery and he missed two games due to a suspension.
Despite it not being “official,” scoring 50 goals in 50 games is an incredible accomplishment, especially considering the fact that fewer goals are scored in today’s NHL than in the 1980s and 90s when the players listed above accomplished the feat.
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