Opinion: Leafs' Auston Matthews Is All Goals and All Hart

Auston Matthews could score 70 goals and not be a finalist for the NHL's Hart Trophy, let alone a winner. Ken Campbell says that would be ridiculous as he revisits Situational Scoring.

If Auston Matthews continues on his current torrid pace, he’ll score 75 goals this season, possibly more. It’s also possible that it won’t mean squat in the Hart Trophy race. Not only might Matthews not win the NHL’s MVP award this season, he might not even be a finalist.

History tells us that is not unprecedented. Logic tells us that would be ridiculous. Because not only has Matthews scored goals at a prodigious pace this season, he’s scored more big goals than anyone else in the NHL. And it’s not close.

How do we know this? Well, because of my Situational Scoring statistic that charts goals by importance. You know how they say that it doesn’t matter how, but how many? Well, with Situational Scoring, it doesn’t matter how many. What really matters is how many of them were meaningful. We last visited Situational Scoring during the all-star break, but it's time for an update.

As the name suggests, it measures situational scoring, specifically which players produce offense at the most crucial times in the game.

As always, there are a couple of things to note, the most important being that goals are weighted more heavily than assists, with goals worth one point and assists worth half a point. In this system, goals can be worth more than one point and assists worth more than a half a point. For example, the first goal of a game is automatically worth two points, one for being the first goal of the game and one for putting that player’s team ahead in a game. An overtime goal is worth three, one for putting the team ahead, one for being the game-winner and one for the overtime goal. If that is the only goal in a 1-0 game, it’s worth four.

It can all be a little confusing, so here’s a glossary:

FIRST: When a player scores the first goal of the game.
AHEAD: Any goal that puts a team ahead at any point in the game, including overtime.
TIED: Any goal that pulls a team into a tie at any point in the game.
COMEBACK: A goal that is scored when a team is trailing by two goals or more and is part of a series of goals that eventually ties the game, regardless of the ultimate outcome of the game.
WINNER: A game-winning goal, but not by the NHL’s definition. The game-winner in this category is the goal that puts a team ahead in a game to stay. So in other words, you could have a 7-6 game and maybe the first goal of the game was the game-winner.
OT: Overtime goal.
SO: Only shootout game-winning goals are counted in this category.
NHL: Where the player stands in the actual NHL scoring race.

Here’s the top 25 to this point in the season: