Duhatschek notebook: Auston Matthews is MVP worthy, Sidney Crosby is Most Valuable Bargain (2024)

The NHL’s MVP debate, which was already shaping up to be supercharged, got even more intriguing this past fortnight as the Toronto Maple Leafs’ Auston Matthews vehemently joined the race. Until Matthews went on his recent tear — he needed just nine games to go from 40 goals to 50 and is now back on pace to exceed 70 — the Hart Trophy favorites were the trio of Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon, Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov and Edmonton’s Connor McDavid.

All are having excellent seasons.

But Matthews is in the process of doing something that hasn’t been done in more than three decades in the NHL — score 70 goals in a single season. He is currently on pace for 76, which gives him a cushion when he inevitably goes a game or two without a goal, something that’s bound to happen … eventually.

The last players to reach 70 were Teemu Selanne and Alex Mogilny, back in 1992-93, who had 76 apieces that year. But professional hockey was a completely different animal back then and goaltending far less sophisticated than today.

The fact that no player has come anywhere close to 70 since then speaks to how unique Matthews’ current run actually is.

Matthews scored No. 50 with the first of two in a road game against the Arizona Coyotes on Wednesday night and then added his 52nd when the Maple Leafs romped past the defending Stanley Cup champion Vegas Golden Knights on Thursday. That game against the Coyotes was a meaningful homecoming for Matthews. He grew up in nearby Scottsdale, played hockey in the Junior Coyotes program, and his parents were in the stands, watching the game. When his first goal went in, some fans at the Mullett Arena were cheering “MVP, MVP.”

It’s something you’d naturally expect to hear if the game had been played in Toronto. It rarely happens to a player in a visiting rink, unless there were special circ*mstances. For context, consider only 14 players have scored 70 or more goals in a single NHL season and 13 of those seasons came between 1981-82 and 1992-93, the highest-scoring era in league history.

Anytime a player happens to score 70, a lot of things have to go right for him. In Matthews’ case, against the Coyotes, the second goal deflected in off his body and caromed into the net. A true fluke. But there really haven’t been many of those thus far this season.

Here’s something else to consider: Matthews isn’t padding his goal-scoring stats with empty netters. Thus far, of his 52 goals, not even one has gone into the empty net. Thirty-seven have been at even strength, 15 on the power play. For a point of comparison, MacKinnon is next in even-strength goals with 26, Kucherov has 24, McDavid has 15.

According to the researchers at #NHLStats, of the 14, 70-goal seasons in NHL history, only two players got to that mark without scoring an empty-net goal. The first was Phil Esposito, back in 1970-71. That year, the Bruins only scored four empty-net goals and Esposito assisted on two of them. The other was Brett Hull. In each of Hull’s three 70-goal seasons he never once scored into an empty net. In all, Hull scored a total of 12 empty-net goals in his career. The most empty-net goals in a 70-goal season were seven from Mario Lemieux in 1988-89. Wayne Gretzky had six in 1983-84.

In effect, Matthews is doing it the hard way.

The Hart Race

What makes the Hart Trophy discussion so complicated is the actual definition of the award. The Hart officially goes to the player “adjudged to be the most valuable to his team.”

This differs from the wording for the Ted Lindsay Award, voted on by the players themselves, and given to the “most outstanding” player in the league. In effect, one’s for most valuable. The other is for most outstanding. A small, but nuanced difference.

In the past, what often hurts the candidacy of one player is if he happens to play with, or alongside, a teammate who’s also in the middle of an excellent season. In the case of the four candidates we cited above, each has a quality running mate. McDavid plays (mostly on the power play and occasionally at even strength) with Leon Draisaitl. MacKinnon plays with Mikko Rantanen; Kucherov with Brayden Point and Matthews with Mitch Marner.

Some years, they tend to be close in points and therefore, in voters’ minds, close in terms of impact as well. But this year, there’s a distinct gap in all of them. As of Thursday morning, MacKinnon was 21 points clear of Rantanen; McDavid was 17 ahead of Draisaitl; Kucherov had scored a whopping 36 points more than Point. Meanwhile, Matthews’ lead on William Nylander is just a single point, while Marner is six back of Nylander.

So there was a lot more balance with Matthews and the Leafs than with the other three candidates, which might work against his candidacy. On the other side of the argument, if you watch the Leafs, it’s clear who is the engine of that team.

But if Matthews gets to 70-plus goals, something that hasn’t happened in over three decades, does that trump what Kucherov is doing with Tampa Bay? Because Kucherov is the one player of the four who’s easy to overlook.

The Lightning have been wildly up and down this year. After Thursday’s loss to the Washington Capitals, they are even in terms of goals for/goals against differential, which is only ninth best in the 16-team Eastern Conference and behind Detroit, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

Though they still have a fabulous pedigree, which is why no one wants to take the Lightning for granted, the reality is, their play on the ice is nowhere near what it was in their dominant years. Were you to subtract Kucherov’s contributions, they might not be a playoff team.

One year (2020-21) the Lightning were able to keep Kucherov on long-term injured reserve for the entire regular season recovering from hip surgery. Even without him, they were good enough to make the playoffs, which is when Kucherov returned and promptly produced 32 points in 23 games to help Tampa Bay win the Stanley Cup.

That still rankles some fans. But there is no disputing what Kucherov is doing for this year’s team – it might be his best season and that’s saying something since he was dominant in 2018-19, when he won the Hart Trophy.

The NHL season is roughly two-thirds completed now. Friday’s first game will be the 900th of the 1,312-game regular season.

For those who go all nerdish on the schedule the way I do, the official game in which the NHL got to two-thirds complete was Game 874 – which was Carolina’s 6-3 win over Chicago on Monday.

So, this is the unofficial home stretch, with lots of hockey to be played. That may make the Hart discussion clearer. But the way things are shaping up, it could muddy the waters even further. It’ll be interesting.

Diving deeper on Matthews

Just as Alex Ovechkin has his favorite spot on the ice to shoot from — top of the circle, to the goaltender’s right side — Matthews has made a habit of scoring goals by flinging the puck from around the face-off dot to the goalie’s left.

Hall of Fame goaltender Henrik Lundqvist, on the TNT broadcast, had a good analysis of that because the question was asked: If teams pre-scout opponents so heavily the way they currently do, why isn’t everyone taking away that opportunity?

Lundqvist’s answer basically boiled down to the fact that as well as Matthews shoots, the thing that sets his game apart is his release, which is quick, almost instantaneous. By getting the shot off fast, the goalie, usually coming across the crease, doesn’t have time to get properly set. And if he’s in motion, there are gaps where the shot can leak through.

“You see too many guys holding onto the puck to make sure it’s flat, so you can get the really good shot away,” Lundqvist said. “But then you let the goalie recover and get there in time and bring the body over.

“Yeah, there are times when you have the opportunity to really pick the goalie apart. But a lot of opportunities are more, ‘Get it to there quickly before the goalie gets set.’ I mean, Ovie scored so many goals on me that were not perfect shots, but they were quick. Same with Matthews.”

Lundqvist’s work on the TNT panel has been a revelation and explains in part why he was arguably the best goalie of his generation.

He has a unique ability to explain the goaltender mindset and relate to what’s unfolding in real-time.

“To score as many goals as (Matthews) has, you need to know where to go,” Lundqvist said. “He has one of the best wrist shots. He has a great slapshot. And just his understanding of the game. Sometimes, people might think, ‘Oh, he can just shoot the puck.’ No. You need to put yourself in position to score these goals. For that to happen, you need to read the play and for it to develop. Too many guys get too excited. You get too close to the net. A lot of times, it’s about patience. Facing this guy is kinda like facing Ovie as a goalie. You have to be on your toes. You have to get your feet set. Because he shoots hard and he shoots accurate. He finds a way to get four or five really good looks every game.”

Crosby’s future and value

Our Rob Rossi had an exclusive chat with Penguins’ star Sidney Crosby about his future with the organization, in light of the fact that Pittsburgh is falling out of the playoff race, which would mean two years in a row on the sidelines for the first time in Crosby’s NHL career. Crosby’s contract is set to expire following the 2024-25 season and so naturally, the rote speculation has become: a) Does Crosby want to win in the time he has left to play? b) If so and if it isn’t going to happen in Pittsburgh, does he want to go play somewhere else?

And of course, the implication of the somewhere else is Colorado so he and MacKinnon, his Nova Scotia buddy, can play together on an NHL team. Crosby told Rossi that nothing’s changed and he hopes to play out his career with the Penguins.

Crosby isn’t the sort of player who says one thing but means another. If he says he wants to be a Penguin for life, then that should be the end of the story. The Penguins will do their best to be as competitive as they can be for as long as they can be with this core, and then do what they’ve done twice before – sink to the bottom, and hope that when (or if) they get another chance to draft first overall, it happens to coincide with a year when a Mario Lemieux or a Crosby is sitting there waiting for them.

Just a reminder by the way that Crosby’s current contract was a 12-year deal, worth $104.4 million and signed back on July 1, 2012, when Ray Shero was the Penguins’ GM. The contract carries an AAV of $8.7 million, and was frontloaded, with the highest compensation in the first three years of the deal, $12 million. Of course, what that’s meant is that in terms of real dollars – not dollars that count against the cap – Crosby has been the NHL’s best value for the second year in a row.

That’s because last year, this year and next year, he will earn just $3 million. That’s it. No performance bonuses. No signing bonuses. $3 million. And to save you the trouble of looking it up, for that $3 million, Crosby has 56 points in 54 games and is playing above 20 minutes per night. In terms of value, that’s hard to beat.

(Top photo of Auston Matthews: Stephen R. Sylvanie / USA Today)