After several weeks of anticipation, Toronto Maple Leafs center Auston Matthews is a member of the 60 goal club.
Matthews was sitting on 58 goals for almost three weeks since his two goal game against the Montreal Canadiens earlier in April, but he finally hit the milestone on Tuesday night in a 3-0 win over the Detroit Red Wings. He scored goal number 59 on a great net front play in the second period, and then got the elusive 60th goal on the power play after a nice job keeping the puck in the zone.
Matthews becomes the third player in the salary cap era to hit 60 goals after Alex Ovechkin scored 65 in 2007-08 and Steven Stamkos scored 60 in 2011-12. Matthews is also the first Toronto Maple Leaf to score 60 goals in a season, a pretty obvious fact considering that Matthews’ season is currently the franchise record for goals in a season after he surpassed Rick Vaive’s 54 goals earlier this season. He’s also the first US-born player to score 60 goals.
On top of the 60 goals that Matthews has this season, he also has a career-high 46 assists and 106 points, and is just the third Maple Leaf to get 100 points in a season, doing so in just 73 games as well, missing eight games due to injury and a suspension.
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