Can Auston Matthews Eventually Surpass Ovechkin in Scoring?

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00:00And then we started talking about who could catch him.

00:04And Mike's convinced it's Austin Matthews.

00:07And apparently you are as well.

00:08And I want to know if you think McDavid and Dreisaitl

00:12who are two years older, Dreisaitl one year older,

00:15McDavid, if either one of them can do it.

00:18I think Austin Matthews is the one.

00:20I think, you know, you look at McDavid,

00:21you look at Dreisaitl, great players.

00:24Dreisaitl has been doing it for a long time.

00:26It really is amazing.

00:27It's not easy to score goals in the National Hockey League.

00:29Like it really is not.

00:31So it's an incredible accomplishment.

00:32But I think it would surprise people to see

00:37that Austin Matthews, like where, how high he is,

00:40the neighborhood that he is in, Scott, right now.

00:44Like he averages more goals per game

00:46than Wayne Gretzky and Ovechkin did.

00:48Ovechkin and Gretzky, 0.60 goals per game.

00:52Matthews averages a goal 0.64.

00:55There's only two players in NHL history

00:58that are in the 70s, Scott.

01:00And one of them, you know,

01:01you can say he's the best goal scorer ever,

01:03but he didn't play long enough.

01:04But the amount of games that he played

01:06and the goals that he scored is Mike Bossy, right?

01:09Mike Bossy averaged a goal 0.76.

01:13The only one close, Scott, Mario,

01:16who doesn't get the love that he deserves

01:17for one reason or another,

01:19compared to a lot of these other players.

01:20Mario, yeah, 0.75, which is pretty crazy.

01:2475% of the time games, Mario scored a goal, right?

01:29And 76% of the time, Bossy scored.

01:32Ovechkin, 60%.

01:34I used to go to the games, right?

01:36So I've been friends with Mario

01:39since the day he was drafted.

01:40And he literally, I have never seen anything in my life

01:44like watching that guy play hockey on a daily basis,

01:47like every day, right?

01:49And I was like watching him

01:50and he was doing things that only Gretzky had done.

01:54And all I know is back then when he was healthy,

01:58we all thought, everyone in Pittsburgh thought,

02:01sportscasters, whoever, sports writers,

02:04they all thought that he was gonna break all of his records.

02:08And then he got cancer.

02:10And then he got the bad back.

02:12And then he still put up ungodly, staggering numbers,

02:18even with cancer and a bad back.

02:21But I think that, I swear to God, man,

02:23I gotta tell you, if he would have never got that cancer

02:26and that back problem,

02:28I think he would have done it on his own.

02:30I've never seen anyone in my life score goals

02:33the way that guy did.

02:34And he was a freight train.

02:35Like when he got going with that big body of his,

02:37he was really moving.

02:39And he would carry guys into the net

02:40and score with three, four guys hanging off of him.

02:43It was like nothing I've ever seen.

02:45Gretzky wasn't that type of player.

02:48Gretzky didn't really ever get touched.

02:50It was a different era, right?

02:52Mario, you're right.

02:53Mario was like one of the first superstars

02:55to just get like physically abused.

02:57He was a big target, so he was easier to get to.

03:01And it was a different era.

03:03There used to, you know, Wayne was protected.

03:04Let's call it out for what it is, point blank.

03:06I mean, right, there was sort of a code

03:09like in the old days, not just with Wayne,

03:11but you don't touch the superstars, right?

03:14Well, you know, Mike Bossy didn't get hit very often either.

03:16Right, it was just, that's what it was.

03:17It was like, listen, those guys shoot, let them shoot.

03:20If you wanna fight, you fight with someone

03:21who wants to fight, leave the star players alone.

03:24And there was a code to it.

03:26Like, you know, Sidney Crosby hasn't played in that, Scott.

03:29Sidney Crosby was getting hit over the head with sticks

03:31in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League

03:33when he was a teenager, right?

03:34Like Crosby's just been abused.

03:37McDavid's been abused, right?

03:39So something about Ovechkin too

03:41that's pretty awesome actually

03:44is that he's only like 235 hits

03:46short of most hits ever in a National Hockey League, Scott.

03:49I know, because he's a bruiser.

03:51Scores the goals and hits you, physical player, right?

03:54In a way, you know, it was a great accomplishment,

03:56but does Matthews do it?

03:59I'm gonna say yes.

04:01Matthews seems to me like the type of guy

04:03that's probably gonna play to about 40, Scott.

04:05He's only 30, he's only 27 right now, right?

04:09I mean, we're talking about 10, 13 years.

04:10Let's say he plays another 10 years.

04:12Be hard for him, he'd have to average over 50 goals a year

04:15for 10 years straight, which sounds like kind of insane.

04:18But let's say he plays like 13 years, Scott,

04:21another 12, 13 years, he's already at 398, right?

04:24I mean, we're a year and a half or two away from 500

04:27and then he's cutting it in half.

04:28Do you think he gets injured too much?

04:31No, I'm gonna say he gets injured too much

04:33because he still puts up big numbers, right?

04:35A lot of it's about the game, Scott, right?

04:37How do they call the game?

04:38Do they loosen things up in future years?

04:41Like one thing this year, guys,

04:43it's harder to score goals this year

04:44in a National Hockey League.

04:46They're not calling penalties.

04:47Like penalties are greatly down.

04:50Teams are not getting as many power plays.

04:52Like the Canucks have like 60 less power plays.

04:55Not like they're doing anything less.

04:56If you watch an NHL game,

04:58the referees are letting a lot of stuff go.

05:00Maybe that's why they're losing so much.

05:04If they were, you know,

05:05there's a lot of little tripping and stuff, Scott,

05:07they're not calling now.

05:08Like there's just sort of little things.

05:10There was a study about this.

05:11Like penalties are way, way down.

05:14So it's not easy to score in a National Hockey League.

05:17And one last thing about this,

05:19the NHL as a whole,

05:20when Wayne Gretzky played,

05:21averaged a full goal a game, more per game.

05:24Like Gretzky, like it was a track meet era, right?

05:27I mean, there were a bunch of dudes

05:28scoring 70 goals every year in those years.

05:31It's harder to score now.

05:33It just is.

05:34I think it's a little easier now

05:35than it was, let's say, five, 10 years ago.

05:38But you know what I mean?

05:39It sort of goes in cycles, right?

05:40So if Matthews is around long enough,

05:43he'll sort of be the benefactor of different rule changes.

05:45But the kid can put the puck in a net, bro.

05:48Point blank.

05:49And the thing that's holding Matthews back a little bit too

05:53is he plays on such a good team.

05:54Let's be real.

05:55The Capitals have been bad a lot.

05:56I know he won a cup, but a lot of it's been,

05:59he can just score goals.

06:00It's about him.

06:01The Leafs is not about Matthews.

06:03They're trying to win a freaking Stanley Cup.

06:04So it's a little bit different as well.

06:06Like if Matthews was on the Coyotes or something,

06:08this kid could score like 65 every year

06:10if he just shot all the time.

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