When Auston Matthews scored his 60th goal of the season some eight months ago, it was a personal moment to file away: For you, for him, for anyone who watches or cares about Maple Leafs hockey.
It had never been done before by the thousand or more players who have worn the Blue and White. Who knows? It may never be done again
The goal was so typical Matthews: It didn’t really look like a scoring chance. He was all by himself in the high slot. And then, bang, his patented wrist shot beat Alex Nedeljkovic in the Red Wings net. History was made.
The awards poured in afterward. The Hart Trophy, with Matthews the first Leaf to win the MVP since Ted Kennedy was gifted the award in 1955. The Rocket Richard, for most goals scored. Voted first team all-star centre — something Mats Sundin, Doug Gilmour, Darryl Sittler, and Dave Keon never accomplished — the first Leaf to be so awarded since Syl Apps 80 years earlier. The Ted Lindsay Award, the MVP as voted by those he plays against.
When Mitch Marner scored points in 18 straight games, thus tying the Maple Leafs records set long ago by Sittler and later tied by Ed Olczyk, it was a personal moment to file away. A moment that got better as the streak grew longer and the games went on. He wound up scoring points in 23 straight games, maybe nowhere near the 51 games of Wayne Gretzky years ago, but a mark for the times, and certainly a streak that only one current player, Patrick Kane, has bettered. In all, Marner wound up with 11 goals and 21 assists in the 23-game streak, which absolutely motivated him.
On almost any night, Marner plays the part of hockey point guard, distributing the puck the way few can, creating his own open spaces, using his instincts to do what others cannot, and writing his own personal history in a season, thus far, that will be hard to forget.
It was almost all Auston Matthews in the second half of last season. It has been almost all Marner in Toronto in the first half of this NHL season. Each creates history in his own individual way. Each contributes something to Maple Leafs lore that we’ve never known before. Collectively, they have yet to achieve what they want, what Leafs Nation wants. But, individually, the first half of 2022 and the second half of this year, when added together, come up with Matthews and Marner, in tandem, being awarded the George Gross Award as Toronto Sun Sportsman of the Year.
Except now it’s Sportsmen of the Year.
Other great individuals have been honoured over the past two decades — from Pinball Clemons to Roy Halladay, from Kyle Lowry to Kyle Dubas, from Joey Votto to Daniel Nestor to Jose Bautista. Just never two teammates, sometimes linemates, from the same team. They are named in honour of the founding sports editor of the Sun, a figure of such prominence his name is honoured in many different places across Canada.
Matthews and Marner were little kids when Gross passed away in 2008, four years after the award had been established. They wouldn’t necessarily know of Gross, of how he escaped what was then Czechoslovakia, how he learned to write in English — which wasn’t his native tongue — and how, against all odds and logic, he became a Canadian journalist of significance.
Matthews himself understands the against-all-odds part of his own story. How he came from Arizona of all places, learned hockey in the desert, took shooting to a level never seen before, and went to Switzerland instead of junior hockey in his draft year. He didn’t swim out of Czechoslovakia with guns firing, but his story remains dramatic.
Marner looked like someone’s little brother playing minor hockey around Toronto, and even when went on to star with the London Knights. His size was always a topic, as was his immense skill. Even when the Leafs drafted him in 2015, the brand-new coach, the Stanley Cup and Olympics legend Mike Babcock, preferred a defenceman with size in that spot.
Babcock didn’t get his way, unlike John Brophy when the Leafs passed on Joe Sakic in 1987 to select Luke Richardson instead. Over time, Marner has grown from minor-hockey great to junior great to now a record-setting NHL player capable of changing games and directions, often at the same time.
He was voted first-team all-star at right wing last season and the season before that. No one from the Leafs had done anything like that since Charlie Conacher, who achieved the feat three straight times 86 years ago. This is how unusual the spectacle of Matthews and Marner is for Toronto.
It’s not like Pittsburgh, where the Penguins have gone from Mario Lemieux to Jaromir Jagr to Sidney Crosby, scoring champ to scoring champ to scoring champ. It’s not like Edmonton, where the Oilers have had Gretzky and Mark Messier and now Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. It’s not like Montreal, where the Habs passed imaginary torches from Rocket Richard to Jean Beliveau to Guy Lafleur.
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There were no torches waiting for players known in the Leafs dressing room as Matty and Mitchie. They’ve had to figure this out on their own, the Leafs’ modern version of the Odd Couple. They couldn’t be more different as people or players. Matthews is a giant man of enormous strength with a giant shot and a larger-than-life personality seeking to be an international star. He cherishes the role of celebrity, just as he cherishes being an incomparable goal scorer.
Like most hockey greats, he has invented his own way to play, moulding it every year, shaping it to new extremes. He used to score like Steve Yzerman scored. Now he looks to model his game after the two-way Yzerman in the second half of his Red Wings career. What’s next? Scoring like Matthews, and playing the rest of the rink like Yzerman. That’s the challenge. Until you win something in Toronto or anywhere else. That’s always the challenge.
Marner can’t shoot at all the way Matthews does. While Matthews finished the season with 40 goals in his final 47 games, winding up at with 61 goals in 89 games played by the end of 2022, Marner scored 44 goals in 91 games — not as far behind as you might expect. This season alone, Matthews has scored 17, Marner 13.
The combination of the two in the calendar year, last half of 2021-22, first half of 2022-23: Heading into Thursday night in Arizona, Matthews and Marner combined for 105 goals and 142 assists in 2022, in either 89 or 91 games, depending on which player we’re referencing.
Sometimes, as captain John Tavares was saying the other day, you have to take a step back and appreciate what you’re seeing in Matthews and Marner, take in how unusual it is for either man to do what he has done. This is Tavares’ 14th NHL season. He’s never played with a 60-goal scorer before. He’s never played with anyone who had a 23-point scoring streak. Most NHL players today could say the same.
Since the lockout season of 2004, only three players have scored 60 goals. Since then, only two players have had scoring streaks of 23 or more games.
“There are moments (for reflection) in this,” said Tavares. “Matty broke the team record and got 60. Mitchie tied the team record and then a set a new record of his own. Those are special moments and you want to find the time to recognize them.
“As historic as this franchise is and how long it’s been around, you want to recognize what they’ve done and they deserve that. At the same time, you want to stay in the moment and not lose focus on the bigger goal.
“No doubt you want to celebrate those moments, especially when you realize what those guys mean to the team.”
Toronto is still waiting for a large payoff and large playoff run — the big picture is what matters most to Leafs Nation. But between that — whenever it comes — there remains the realization we are witnesses to history, to individual performances of unlikely heights.
Here’s to more nights of Matty and Mitchie, the Odd Couple of the Leafs, doing things we’ve never seen before.
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