What Auston Matthews' goal trajectory looks like after hitting No. 300

After his hat trick in the Toronto Maple Leafs' season-opening win over the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday, Auston Matthews has scored 302 goals in his NHL career — catapulting him to 218th on the all-time list.

That may not sound like an impressive number, but considering the Maple Leafs center turned 26 less than a month ago it's quite the accomplishment. In fact, he's the 10th-fastest player in league history to reach the 300 mark, and he's done so in an era when goal-scoring hasn't come easy.

Looking at the nine players to reach 300 tallies in fewer games, most of them did so during a time when any given shot was more likely to find the twine. In Matthews' first seven seasons — we'll omit the averages from 2023-24 because so few games have been played — the league-average save % hovered between .904 and .913. On average, it sat at .909.

Most of the players who beat Matthews to 300 goals played in years with more favorable offensive environments:

(Editor's note: There isn't reliable save % data for Richard's first years, but in his seasons on the way to 300 goals the GAA average was 3.13. The closest season to that in NHL history was 1994-95 (3.14 GAA) when goalies had a .895 save %.)

Even though Gretzky, Lemieux, Hull and Bossy had easier goaltending to deal with, they were far enough ahead of Matthews that it's tough to claim his goal-scoring is more impressive, but you could comfortably slot him ahead of Kurri, Selanne, Bure and Richard at this point in his career, with Ovechkin as a close comparable.

Barring catastrophic injury, Matthews is on his way to making an impact on the all-time leaderboards, and reaching 300 on Wednesday night gives us a good opportunity to check in on his trajectory.

The Maple Leafs record

Mats Sundin has scored more goals in a Maple Leafs uniform than any other player — lighting the lamp 420 times in 13 years with the team.

After signing a four-year extension with Toronto in August, Matthews made claiming this record a virtual inevitability.

If we assume a lack of season-disrupting events, the centre is under contract for 409 more games with the Maple Leafs. In his career thus far he's been available for 89.8% of his possible appearances with Toronto, so it's reasonable to project he'll play 367 more games under his current contract.

In order to estimate his goal total in those contests, we'll use his goals-per-game pace since the beginning of the 2019-20 season (0.707). The reasoning for that is he managed between 0.49 and 0.55 goals per game in each of his first three years, and found a clear new level from his fourth season on — scoring 40 or more goals in each campaign after that.

Using Matthews' goals-per-game average since 2019-20, and applying it to the 367 games he's projected to play over the next five seasons, we're looking at 260 more goals with Toronto.

It's possible he'll regress slightly in his late twenties or suffer more injuries, but he's almost a lock to pass Sundin.

The bigger picture

To explore this a little further let's say Matthews gets those 260 goals with the Maple Leafs, giving him 562 as he enters his age-31 season.

That would put him 26th on the all-time list — two goals behind Sundin as chance would have it — with plenty of good years remaining in his career.

Mounting a challenge on the NHL record would require excellent health and a virtually non-existent decline. Its viability could also depend on what Ovechkin gets up to in the twilight of his career. At this point it's an outcome that's within the realm of possibility, but there are plenty of reasons to bet against it.

There are some impressive round numbers that look like they could be in play, though. If the 26-year-old's next chapter in Toronto meets expectations then the 700-goal club — a group with just eight members — would be well within reach. That would require Matthews to play seven more seasons after his current contract with an average of 20 goals per year, an unambitious number for a player of his talents.

Based off the earlier Maple Leafs' goal projection, a run at 800 — a milestone only Ovechkin, Wayne Gretzky and Gordie Howe have reached — would require Matthews to light the lamp 34 times per season from his age-31 to age-37 years. Again, that doesn't sound like much for him, but we're getting relatively deep into his decline phase with injury risks increasing.

Matthews can model Ovechkin's old-man game to some degree with his potent one-timer and release, but it's tough to assume he can fight off scoring decline like the Russian, who is a freak in that regard.

While Matthews is still relatively early in his career, the speed at which he reached 300 is a strong clue that he's one of the best goal scorers the NHL has ever seen.

There are plenty of unknowable variables that could affect where his career path goes, both in terms of his own health and how the NHL's offensive environment evolves — but it seems like the 26-year-old could have a comfortable road to 700 goals and a feasible path to 800.

Assuming he'll get past that is a bridge too far, but it's hard to put a ceiling on his ability to put the puck in the net.