Auston Matthews Robs Connor McDavid of NHL Award
Connor McDavid was awarded the second star for the month of February - but should have been the first.
EDMONTON -- Connor McDavid can't stop finding ways to impress.
It started last year when the Edmonton Oilers captain found the back of the net 64 times to win the Rocket Richard trophy. The next closest player was David Pastrnak with 61 goals.
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This year McDavid is finding is assisting way more than usual - and way more than has been seen since the days of Mario Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky. He's on pace for the first 100+ assist season since the 1990-91 season - when Gretzky recorded 122 assists for the Los Angeles Kings.
What the Oilers captain is doing right now is that impressive.
Conversely, what Auston Matthews of the Toronto Maple Leafs is doing is also impressive - he has 53 goals in 58 games. It's not out of the question for him to hit 70 goals before the end of the 2023-24 season.
Both players had incredible production in February - and both were recognized for it by the NHL. Matthews was awarded the first star of the month while McDavid was awarded the second star. Here are both stat lines:
Matthews - 12 GP - 13 Goals - 7 Assists - 20 Points
McDavid - 12 GP - 2 Goals - 25 Assists - 27 Points
Matthews had 26% less points than McDavid - why was he awarded the first star? Matthews scored 1.08 goals per game in February. Elias Pettersson and Nathan MacKinnon scored at a similar rate in January. Pettersson had a stat line eerily similar to Matthews but received the third star for the month of January.
When looking at the rest of the season to date, several players have scored at a rate similar to or slightly above a goal per game - Matthews, Pettersson, and MacKinnon.
McDavid recorded 2.08 assists per game in February. No one else in the league has had over two assists per game in a calendar month. The closest was Cale Makar - who had 20 assists in 13 games in November (1.53 assists per game).
Of McDavid's 25 assists, 15 were primary assists. Meaning he was the last player to touch the puck before the goal scorer. It's one thing to have 25 assists and have 20 of them be secondary, it's another to average over one primary assist per game in a month.
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McDavid has been doing that all season. He has 72 helpers this year - 44 are primary. The next closest is Kucherov with 39. Kucherov has played six more games than McDavid.
Matthews should be recognized for what he is accomplishing this year - and there is an award at the end of the season for that. But what McDavid achieved in the month of February was far more impressive.
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