Matthews, McDavid, Vasilevskiy All Have Late-Season NHL Milestones Within Reach

The NHL season has almost reached its end but the players are still grinding out the final games. Some players, however, are within striking range of some impressive NHL milestones that they just might snag.

With less than two weeks remaining in the 2023-24 NHL regular season, playoff chases and races are dominating the discourse.

And while every NHL player will say that he cares more about team wins and playoff success, we could see some pretty impressive individual benchmarks achieved before this 82-game set draws to a close.

To start, we've got Auston Matthews in position to put up the highest-scoring season of this millennium, setting a new standard as he surpasses Alex Ovechkin.

And while Connor McDavid is now just one point away from becoming the fourth player in NHL history to hit 100 assists, he'll have company by the end of the year if Nikita Kucherov keeps doing what he has been doing.

Here's a closer look at some major milestones that are within striking distance.

Milestone: 70 goals

Who’s Chasing: Auston Matthews (64)

Why It Matters: Once Matthews gets past Alex Ovechkin’s career high of 65, he’ll become the top single-season goal-scorer of the 21st century. The last players to get into the 70s were Teemu Selanne and Alex Mogilny, who both logged 76-goal years in 1992-93.

Matthews also leads the NHL with six hat tricks this season, something that only nine other players have accomplished in NHL history. The single-season record is 10 — Gretzky did it twice.

Milestone: 100 assists

Who’s Chasing: Connor McDavid (99), Nikita Kucherov (93)

Why It Matters: Only three players in NHL history have hit triple-digits in assists. Gretzky did it 11 times, while Mario Lemieux and Bobby Orr each did it once.

It’s rarefied air, so it’s incredible that two players could hit that mark this year. The watch has been on McDavid for a while, but with 11 assists in his last five games, Kucherov is also now very much within striking distance. The Lightning have five games remaining.

Milestone: Seven consecutive 30-win seasons

Who’s Chasing: Andrei Vasilevskiy (29)

Why It Matters: Though this has been a down year by Vasilevskiy’s sky-high standards, the Vezina and Conn Smythe Trophy winner is one win away from hitting 30 this season — despite having missed six weeks at the beginning of the year after undergoing back surgery.

If Vasilevskiy gets there, he’ll join six others, including the likes of Ken Dryden, Henrik Lundqvist and Ryan Miller, in a tie for the third-most consecutive 30-win seasons for a goalie. 

The two who have done it more? Martin Brodeur, of course, at 12, and Patrick Roy at eight.

Vasilevskiy has also started every Lightning playoff game since Game 2 of the 2016 Eastern Conference Final, a string of 104 consecutive games. The only goalies with more are Brodeur (194), Roy (133) and Lundqvist (129).

Milestone: 69 points by a rookie first-overall pick

Who’s Chasing: Connor Bedard (22-37-59)

Why It Matters: Despite missing those 14 games with his fractured jaw, Bedard is within striking distance of Auston Matthews’ 69-point rookie season in 2015-16, with six games left to play. 

Bedard has already surpassed the first year of Connor McDavid (48 points) and is sneaking up on Nathan MacKinnon (63). The only first-overall rookies who previously exceeded Matthews’ production in the salary-cap era are Alex Ovechkin (106 pts), Sidney Crosby (102 pts), Evgeni Malkin (85 pts) and Patrick Kane (73 pts), who all played 78 games or more.

Milestone: 76 assists by a defenseman

Who’s Chasing: Quinn Hughes (70)

Why It Matters: With 86 points, Quinn Hughes leads all defensemen this season. In the salary-cap era, that number falls behind just two other blueliners: Erik Karlsson’s 101-point campaign from last year and Roman Josi’s 96-pointer from 2021-22.

Hughes has been productive late in the season, with five points in his last four games. To challenge those numbers, though, he’d need to stay on a major heater for Vancouver’s last five games.

But if he gets four assists in those final five games, he’d pass Josi’s total helpers from his 96-point year. And seven assists would put Hughes ahead of Karlsson, making him the first defenseman to get to 77 assists since Sergei Zubov in 1993-94.

The only defensemen in NHL history with more than 77 assists in a season? Bobby Orr (five times), Paul Coffey (four times), Brian Leetch and Phil Housley.