TDK67
Registered User
- Apr 17, 2016
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TL;DR - Matthews is head and shoulders above his peer group (i.e. generation) in goal scoring similarly to how far above Ovi was to his peers at Matthews' age & development. In per/60 goal rates, Matthews actually holds larger gaps over his peers than Ovi did. By all accounts Matthews is currently far and away the best goal scorer of his "generation". A definitive "generational goal scorer" title will likely take much more of his career to suss out, but it seems he's on track for that as well.
I'll attempt to answer the title's question (and potential rebuttals) with a litany of data and comparisons so strap in...
First off, let's try to define the window of a "generation" as it pertains to hockey players. Logically I would assume a "generation" in the NHL is about 10-15 years. Not sure how to empirically prove that so I'll look at it through a somewhat odd lens--"generational" talent.
I think there's a fairly strong consensus that guys like McDavid, Crosby, Ovi, Lemieux & Gretzky are/were "generational" talents. There are cases to be made for players like Malkin, Lidstrom, Lindros, etc but let's just look at the consensus 4 and their debut years:
With all of that in mind, what is Matthews' "generation" and who are his peers? I'll posit that McDavid is the obvious marker for the current/latest "generation". Then to add some wiggle room and make this peer group kind of...tidy, let's say 2013 is a soft start for the new generation. That basically has us looking at everyone U25 (i.e. 25 yrs old & under) as part of Matthews' peer group. With those parameters set, time to dig into some numbers!
Below are several tables revolving around career goal scoring numbers for today's U25 NHLers. I only did Top 5 for each category but if there's enough interest I could expand these to Top 10 (data is mainly from NHL.com & corsicahockey.com).
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These tables will ONLY be the first 4 seasons for Ovi & his coinciding peer group. This is mainly to try and create similar conditions to our Matthews' data in terms of his stage of development & peers. I.e. When Ovi was Matthews' age, he did x...
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Matthews is head and shoulders above his peer group (i.e. generation) in goal scoring similarly to how far above Ovi was to his peers at Matthews' age & development. In per/60 goal rates, Matthews actually holds larger gaps over his peers than Ovi did. By all accounts Matthews is currently far and away the best goal scorer of his generation. However, a definitive "generational goal scorer" title will likely take much more of his career to suss out, but it seems he's on track for that as well.
Two last neat tidbits and some FAQs/rebuttals-to-rebuttals:
I think that should cover most stuff. If you made it this far, thank you for reading this. I've never written something as long or as thorough as this so I appreciate your patience. All of the tables were from data that had to be calculated and/or aggregated manually because no sources provide a "UX" (under x years) filter to combine with rate data plus there's no p60 data for the older seasons.
Thanks again and let me know if you have any questions about methodology, numbers, etc!
I'll attempt to answer the title's question (and potential rebuttals) with a litany of data and comparisons so strap in...
First off, let's try to define the window of a "generation" as it pertains to hockey players. Logically I would assume a "generation" in the NHL is about 10-15 years. Not sure how to empirically prove that so I'll look at it through a somewhat odd lens--"generational" talent.
I think there's a fairly strong consensus that guys like McDavid, Crosby, Ovi, Lemieux & Gretzky are/were "generational" talents. There are cases to be made for players like Malkin, Lidstrom, Lindros, etc but let's just look at the consensus 4 and their debut years:
- McDavid - 2015
- Ovi/Crosby - 2005
- Lemieux -1983
- Gretzky - 1979
With all of that in mind, what is Matthews' "generation" and who are his peers? I'll posit that McDavid is the obvious marker for the current/latest "generation". Then to add some wiggle room and make this peer group kind of...tidy, let's say 2013 is a soft start for the new generation. That basically has us looking at everyone U25 (i.e. 25 yrs old & under) as part of Matthews' peer group. With those parameters set, time to dig into some numbers!
Below are several tables revolving around career goal scoring numbers for today's U25 NHLers. I only did Top 5 for each category but if there's enough interest I could expand these to Top 10 (data is mainly from NHL.com & corsicahockey.com).
Player | Goals Per Game |
Auston Matthews | 0.55 |
Connor McDavid | 0.46 |
David Pastrnak | 0.45 |
Patrik Laine | 0.45 |
Elias Pettersson | 0.41 |
- The gap between Matthews at #1 (0.55) & #2 (0.46) is larger than the gap between #2 (0.46) & #11 (0.38). I think Matthews' separation in G/GP from his peer group could be labeled as "not close".
Player | Goals per 60 (All Sit) |
Auston Matthews | 1.80 |
David Pastrnak | 1.59 |
Patrik Laine | 1.54 |
Elias Pettersson | 1.38 |
Jake Guentzel | 1.36 |
- Matthews has clearly separated himself from #2 in his peer group again here, but this time Pasta (& Laine) are kind of in their own tier before the gaps really narrow in the #4 (1.38) to #10 (1.28) area.
Player | Goals per 60 (5v5) |
Auston Matthews | 1.54 |
Jake Guentzel | 1.20 |
David Pastrnak | 1.14 |
Connor McDavid | 1.12 |
Jakub Vrana | 1.12 |
- Matthews' 5v5 scoring has been heralded a lot but it bears repeating. The gap between his 1.54 g/60 and the 2nd best g/60 (1.2) of his peer group is larger than the gap between #2 & #25 (0.87). Fair to say it's an almost astronomical difference.
- To hammer this home--the clearly generational McDavid holds this large of a gap over the next best player in per 60 stats only in 5v5 points per 60 (no other metric--like 5v4, assists, A1, P1, etc). Which obviously makes sense and is unreal. Coincidentally it's an identical 0.34 gap over #2...which happens to be Matthews (2.9 vs 2.56). My larger point here is that Matthews 5v5 goals per 60 is on another planet compared to his peer group (and the entire NHL really) similar to how no one else is remotely close to McDavid's 5v5 pts/60.
These tables will ONLY be the first 4 seasons for Ovi & his coinciding peer group. This is mainly to try and create similar conditions to our Matthews' data in terms of his stage of development & peers. I.e. When Ovi was Matthews' age, he did x...
Players | Goals Per Game |
Alex Ovechkin | 0.68 |
Ilya Kovalchuk | 0.59 |
Marian Gaborik | 0.59 |
Alex Semin | 0.49 |
Evgeni Malkin | 0.48 |
- Remember that 0.09 gap Matthews has over his next closest peer in G/GP? I think it's a coincidence that it's identical for Ovi & his peers so the important takeaway for me is that both Matthews & Ovi held a significant edge over their peers in goal scoring per game.
Player | Goals Per 60 (All Sit) |
Marian Gaborik | 1.85 |
Alex Ovechkin | 1.82 |
Ilya Kovalchuk | 1.64 |
Alex Semin | 1.60 |
Evgeni Malkin | 1.36 |
- Interesting enough Ovi didn't have the best "all situations g/60" within his peer group. On the other hand, Matthews is #1 among his peers by a good deal.
Player | Goals per 60 (EV) (5v5 unavailable) |
Marian Gaborik | 1.66 |
Alex Ovechkin | 1.60 |
Alex Semin | 1.45 |
Ilya Kovalchuk | 1.44 |
Evgeni Malkin | 1.11 |
- Ovi again comes in #2 among his peers for "EV g/60" but he was (and still is) a powerplay monster and that's part of the "all time great" package so I wouldn't read much into this. This is/was the one thing where Matthews blows his peers away but I have a feeling that Ovi likely does the same in PP goals/60 #s.
Matthews is head and shoulders above his peer group (i.e. generation) in goal scoring similarly to how far above Ovi was to his peers at Matthews' age & development. In per/60 goal rates, Matthews actually holds larger gaps over his peers than Ovi did. By all accounts Matthews is currently far and away the best goal scorer of his generation. However, a definitive "generational goal scorer" title will likely take much more of his career to suss out, but it seems he's on track for that as well.
Two last neat tidbits and some FAQs/rebuttals-to-rebuttals:
- Matthews finished 2nd in the NHL Rocket race as a teenager in his D+1 season (draft +1 year). Literally no other NHLer has EVER finished 2nd or higher in goal scoring at Matthews' age and development in his rookie season.
- Matthews continues adding weapons to his goal scoring arsenal. I'm not sure a clearer progression of goal scoring ability exists in charts than what you'll see here when flipping through his goal map year-by-year. To me, that demonstrates how incredibly versatile and hard-to-neutralize he's becoming in terms of goal scoring.
- Q: If Matthews were truly a "generational" goal scorer why hasn't he won a Rocket yet?
- A: Injuries mainly. He finished 2nd in 2017, was on pace for another 2nd place finish in 2018, on pace for a 7th place finish in 2019 (with a below career avg shot%). He seems set up nicely to contend for the 2020 Rocket in the last 35+ games.
- Q: Why no mention of PP goal scoring?
- A: That data is folded into the "All Sit" info. Outside of that I don't think there's much value in focusing specifically on PP as a measure of overall goal scoring prowess.
- Q: Why the focus on per 60 stats? Total goals are the only thing that matters!
- A: The same way that goals per game smoothes out discrepancies in games played between players, p60 stats smoothes out discrepancies in usage among players. I think it's the most "fair" & accurate way to draw comparisons considering usage can vary significantly from player to player and team to team.
- Q: So Matthews is efficient, so what. No guarantee an increase in TOI gives him more goals overall.
- A: That's kind of true...in the sense that there's no guarantee of anything ever in the NHL. That said, there's zero evidence that an increase in TOI generally has a *negative* impact on *elite* players.
- Q: Matthews will never have the high goal totals or goal scoring peak of all time greats (like Ovi) therefore he can’t be a “generational goal scorer”.
- A: The first part is likely true but that has much more to do with circumstances outside of Matthews’ control (usage, PP opps, league wide scoring, etc) than with Matthews’ own skills. This is where comparing Matthews to his peers and seeing how that relates to Ovi vs his peers is valuable, IMO. Some folks try to do “era-adjusted” stats to address scoring discrepancies in eras but I’m not sure how good/reliable those formulas are. I think we can learn a lot by seeing how players performed relative to the league and their peer groups if we want to compare NHLers across generations. Also, if we're playing the speculation game (i.e. "will never do X"), then its worth noting Matthews' g/gp rate likely puts him into the Top 25 for goals all time if he plays another 10 years and even higher if he plays more than that.
I think that should cover most stuff. If you made it this far, thank you for reading this. I've never written something as long or as thorough as this so I appreciate your patience. All of the tables were from data that had to be calculated and/or aggregated manually because no sources provide a "UX" (under x years) filter to combine with rate data plus there's no p60 data for the older seasons.
Thanks again and let me know if you have any questions about methodology, numbers, etc!
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