Auston Matthews is on pace for some cool milestones in 2018-19

Auston Matthews is entering his third season in the NHL and he already has an impressive list of accomplishments. Through his first 144 games, he’s scored 74 goals, 132 points, and he’s won the Calder Trophy. Let’s take a look at some cool milestones Matthews can reach this year.

100 career goals: Matthews is 26 goals shy of reaching the 100-goal plateau. He scored his 50th goal in his 96th career game last season and Alex Ovechkin is only other NHL player to accomplish that since 1994. Matthews, barring injury, will join an impressive list of players who reached the 100-goal mark very quickly.

Goals as a Maple Leaf: Matthews currently ranks 79th in Leafs all-time goals with 74. This season, he can pass legends like Tomas Kaberle and Bryan McCabe (tied for 70th with 83 goals), Matt Stajan (61st with 87 goals), and Alexei Ponikarovsky (45th with 114 goals).

More goals than Jack Eichel: Matthews has 74 goals while Jack Eichel, drafted in 2015 and frequently regarded as the top American prospect between the two by fans of the Buffalo Sabres, has 73 goals. Whoops! Matthews already has more goals than Eichel does despite having played 63 fewer NHL games.

More goals than Bobby Ryan has as a Senator: The Senators acquired Bobby Ryan back before the 2013-14 season. Ryan has now played 353 games over five seasons with the Sens, racking up a modest 87 goals. Matthews currently has 74 goals through the first two seasons of his NHL career. Given the 11 goals Ryan had last year and the fact the Sens are going to be extremely bad, Mattews should pass Ryan’s career goal totals as a Sen sometime around Christmas.

More playoff goals than the Atlanta Thrashers: Look, everyone knows Matthews didn’t have a great playoff showing last year. Still, he has five goals in 12 career playoff games, leaving him one shy of the number of goals the Atlanta Thrashers had in their 11-season history before moving north to become the Winnipeg Jets 2.0. The Thrashers made the playoffs just once in 2006-07 and got swept by the New York Rangers, scoring just six goals in total.

More playoff games than Connor McDavid: It’s always impressive to have the edge on McDavid in any statistical category given the fact the back-to-back Art Ross Trophy winner is the best player in the world right now. When Auston Matthews suits up for a playoff game this spring, it’ll be the 14th of his career. McDavid has currently played in 13 playoff games and won’t play in another one until he isn’t a member of the Edmonton Oilers meaning Matthews will have the edge on him in that category.

It’ll be a fun season to follow, that’s for sure.