Two season-long record chases by two different men came down to the final day and a matchup against each other. In fairness, the NHL couldn’t have scripted it better.
The Tampa Bay Lightning and the Toronto Maple Leafs played each other on Wednesday, April 17, without anything on the line other than individual accolades at an arm’s reach of Nikita Kucherov (100 assists) and Auston Matthews (70 goals).
One got there. The other one… did not.
Kucherov became the fifth player to have a 100-assist season as the Lightning beat the Leafs 6–4 on Wednesday night at Malie Arena. The winger also scored a goal in the first period and then found Brayden Point in a power-play with 2:55 left in the second for his 100th assist.
“It’s a special moment,” Kucherov told reporters after the game, via NHL.com. “Thanks to my teammates and coaching staff for putting me in position to have success. I’m fortunate to play with great players.”
This unique accomplishment, however, came just two days after Connor McDavid reached the 100-assist plateau with the Edmonton Oilers, diminishing both men’s achievements if only a tiny bit and making them a little less unique.
Auston Matthews Can’t Score 70 Goals, Finishes With 69
On the other end of the rink Wednesday, there was a Leafs center cashing another piece of history: becoming the first player to score 70 goals since Alexander Mogilny and Teemu Selanne each scored 76 in 1992-93, and just the ninth player to ever reach the 70-goal figure.
It didn’t come to happen for Matthews, who failed to score a single goal against the Lightning and will have to conform with having 69 on the season.
Matthews will win the Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy with a league-high 69 goals. That being said, not even a game-high 12 shots on goal on 16 total attempts were enough for him to make the put kiss the net on the final game of the season for him and the Leafs.
“I wanted it, for sure,” Matthews told reporters after the game on April 17. “But it just wasn’t meant to be.”
Matthews’ 69 goals are the most since Mario Lemieux finished with the same tally in 1995-96.
As documented by Heavy’s Cole Shelton, Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe was a little bit worried about the 70-goal chase creating “a major distraction” around the team, saying it “doesn’t help us, what we’re trying to accomplish.”
After Matthews failed to score his 70th goal on Wednesday, Keefe spoke to media members and said something that could be related to the attention the goalscoring record chase has generated of late.
“I couldn’t tell you the score in any of those (past) games, including the one that just finished,” Keefe told reporters as his team enters the postseason riding a four-game losing streak.
