Matthews scored twice and his Maple Leafs teammates want him to score 70. At this rate maybe he can score more than that.
Matthews scored twice and his Maple Leafs teammates want him to score 70. At this rate maybe he can score more than that.
At this point, it seems like Auston Matthews could score anytime he touches the puck.
The Toronto Maple Leafs superstar scored twice to record his 67th and 68th goals of the season in a 6-5 loss to the New Jersey Devils on Thursday.
Matthews scored his 67th of the season with a wrister from the circle midway through the first period that gave Toronto a 2-1 lead.
Hefollowed that up with his 68th goal of the season and second of the night when he managed to get his stick in the lane of Max Domi's pass from along the end boards.
"Just trying to out wait as long as I could," Domi said about the setup on the goal. "I saw him put his stick down and obviously we have a pretty good understanding of each other's games. And he's a little blue paint there, so got to put it on his tape and he did the rest."
On his first goal of the night, Matthews passed Dave Keon for third on the all-time Leafs scoring list. He now has 367 career NHL goals and is just 53 goals shy of matching all-time record of 420 set by Mats Sundin.
"It's remarkable what he's doing," Maple Leafs captain John Tavares said of Matthews. "I think there's no question about it, he's doing something truly special. So just appreciate it every night."
Matthews, who matched his season-high seven-game goal-scoring streak (nine in that span), has often deflected when talking about his personal accomplishments as he aims to keep the focus on his team's playoff ambitions. But his teammates clearly want to see him become the first player to score 70 goals in a season.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CF-4-arbQ-Y[/embed]
Now that he's two away with three games to go, Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe admits he'd like to see it too, especially if he could score twice on Saturday and get it done in the team's final regular season home game when they host the Detroit Red Wings.
"Well, it'd be terrific. I mean, 70 is a nice round number and everything to aspire to, but as I said, I think it's, what he's doing right now, it's pretty incredible," Keefe said. "He's rewriting the record books, and, you know, there's a lot of Leaf fans that in their lifetime, you know, haven't seen that, haven't seen that many goals in the NHL, so it's pretty remarkable. So, you know, wherever this ends up going, who knows? I wouldn't put any limit on it at this point, but it's just, it's terrific to watch."
Keefe also felt this was the first time he felt the team was trying too much to get the puck to the Matthews to a point it cost them the result towards the end of the game.
"I thought tonight was probably the first time I saw, especially once he got the second one, we started to force it a little bit to him," Keefe said. "And then things started to break down, and I'd love to see that because he doesn't need that. Doesn't need that, just play the game. He's good enough as it is. He's going to find his way to his stick. But, yeah, just the way that he himself has just continued to play hard and lead the way for us and embrace his line, his linemates, to let that roll while we can work on other things, it's been great. And it was awesome the fans got to, you know, see this here tonight, and, you know, he'll stay at it again on Saturday."
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