So for interest’s sake, in the 5 seasons since Matthews has entered the league, when you look at goal scoring P60, only one player appears in the top ten seasons more than once. Matthews is at 2nd, 3rd and 10th.
Of the 5 names that get thrown around (Matthews, OV, Pastrnak, Draisaitl and McDavid), only two names appear in the top 50 more than once: Matthews and OV.
Matthews – 2nd, 3rd, 10th, 13th, 43rd
OV – 5th, 38th, 40th, 42nd
Pastrnak – 18th
Draisaitl – None
McDavid – 48th
What you can basically take from that is that at 5 on 5, in the time given, Matthews is hands down the most proficient goal scorer of the past half decade.
For those of you greatly offended by P60 and enamoured with raw totals, Matthews raw totals are 9% higher than second best despite Matthews having played around 30 less games than most of the field.
Where Matthews falls behind in that time frame is on the PP. If you look at his P60 production on PP, it’s actually been pretty good but as pointed out, he was often given less opportunity.
For the raw totals folks out there, over that time frame, he is 27 PP goals off the leader. Where it gets interesting is looking at the last two seasons. Over the last two seasons his ES ice time has risen 16 % and his PP ice time has risen 25%. Over that time frame he leads in raw goals, leads in raw ES goals and is 4 off the raw PP goal lead. He also leads in P60.
Long and the short of it is what people said about P60 with regards to Matthews has basically exactly translated. Once given the same opportunities as others, the raw totals have followed. This guy is legit and barring injury, you are witnessing a once in a rare while goal scorer. With any luck these stupid short seasons will soon end so we can watch his career onslaught (also hopefully no injuries derail it like Stamkos).
As a side note, Gallagher is underrated. He’ll never be a 40 – 50 guy but he appears in the top 50 list three times - 12, 17, 36. Proficient little pest.