Auston Matthews is going to break the 50-goal plateau. He’s also very likely going to break Rick Vaive’s single-season franchise goal record. You know, barring some kind of disaster, of course.

Well, here we are. Back at the beginning of the month when everything was normal, I took a look at the season Matthews was having and compared it to the best seasons seen in Maple Leafs history. Matthews was on pace to put together the best offensive season very seen by a Leaf, but the COVID-19 pandemic has seemingly thrown that out the window.

We can’t yet say for sure, but all logic points to the 2019-20 season being cancelled. Maybe there’ll still be playoffs this summer, but it doesn’t seem feasible that the remaining regular-season games will be played. That means Matthews ends up with 47 goals in 70 games, just three shy of the illustrious 50-goal plateau and one shy of Alex Ovechkin and David Pastrnak for the Rocket Richard Trophy.

It’s a shame that he wasn’t able to reach any of the milestones he was chasing, but this is just the beginning for Matthews. He’s only 22 years old and there will be 50-goal seasons and Rocket Richard trophies in his not-so-distant future. After his second and third seasons in the league were riddled due to injury, Matthews really broke out this year and proved that he’s very possibly the best natural scorer in the NHL.

Just watch the video beneath that features all of Matthews’ 47 goals from this season. The variety of goals in there is what makes it so impressive. The one-time slap shots from all around the offensive zone, the difficult deflections from in close, and the quick snipe wrist shots that somehow manage to just find the smallest hole left by the goalie. It’s the variety he features in his skillset that makes Matthews such an unbelievable scorer.