Toronto Maple Leafs defenceman Chris Tanev believes that Auston Matthews could one day overtake Alex Ovechkin as the NHL’s all-time goal leader.
Ovechkin is on a collision course to break Wayne Gretzky’s once-unbreakable record of 894 goals and is currently 31 goals away from immortality. Whether it occurs this season or next, it will no doubt be a remarkable achievement for the sport to see one of The Great One’s records fall.
“100 per cent,”, Tanev said via Sportsnet’s Luke Fox when asked if Matthews could overtake the crown from The Great 8 in the future. “If he stays healthy — hopefully for us, he does — maybe you guys will be talking about that.”
Toronto’s captain has played 575 career games and recorded 373 career goals — 25 more goals than what Ovechkin had at the same point of his career. Of course, Gretzky had already hit the 500-goal plateau by his 575th career game so there is no chance of Matthews breaking that record, but getting to the monumental milestone at a comparable rate to when Ovechkin did is certainly doable.
“All five guys on the ice, got to do a good job,” Tanev said Tuesday night when asked about the challenge of defending Ovechkin. “Any good players, it’s not just one guy, it’s five guys and a goalie that need to be in the right spots and work for each other, communicate and be on the same page.”
With 127 goals left to join the 500-goal club, Matthews’ career goals-per-game rate of 0.65 means it will likely occur either late in the 2025-26 or early in the 2026-27 season. If you were to take the more conservative route of presuming Matthews does this in the latter timeline, that would mean he reaches the feat in the 11th season of his career, the same year when Ovechkin reached the 500-goal milestone.
It goes without saying that all of this will only be possible if Matthews can stay healthy as Tanev correctly points out. Matthews has missed the past four games due to an upper-body injury and his status for Wednesday night’s game against the Washington Capitals is unknown at the time of filing. Additionally, Matthews is off to a slow start to the season by his standards with five goals through the first 13 games, which pales in comparison to his 69-goal output last season.
There is certainly still time for him to turn things around and get back on track. After all, there are not many players in the game right now who are more deadly in the offensive zone when Matthews is on his game. At the end of the day, projections can only mean so much if the player themselves cannot deliver on where the trends suggest they may be going.
The fact that Matthews is a comparable to Ovechkin in the conversation of who will end up atop the NHL’s all-time goal leaders when both of their careers are over is a testament to the captain’s talents and skillset
