Matthews pulled off the amazing feat in the very first game to drop the puck on the first night of the NHL’s 2016-17 season. The Senators won 5-4 in OT but the Leafs managed their first point of the season, or perhaps it’s better described as Matthews, for the first but not last time, picked up his team and got them a point.
The just-turned 19-year-old scored his first goal in the first period of his first NHL game on his first shot and yes, his was the first goal scored in the league’s centenary season. It was the first time a rookie scored four goals in his first game and the first time a rookie scored four goals in any one game since 1976 (when Don Murdoch got five).
They were all good goals, especially the one where he stole the puck in the Ottawa zone from two Sens defenders, one being Norris Trophy winning Erik Karlsson, and darted toward the net before beating goalie Craig Anderson. That was his first unassisted goal and first highlight reel goal.
Are there any more firsts? Well thanks to Matthews the game marked the first time that Leaf’s fans have hope for the future since, well since they last won the Stanley Cup in 1967. You know, the year of the first Super Bowl (Green Bay beat Kansas City), first rock concept album (the Beatles’ ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’) and the first year of the NHL’s expansion era (they went from 6 teams to 12).
Enough with the firsts?
Okay, but first it must be noted that Ottawa got its first win in its first game (and first home game) when, at 37 seconds of the season’s first overtime, Kyle Turris scored his…second goal of the game. Oh, and Toronto plays its second game of the year on Saturday night against the Boston Bruins.
In that game Matthews will get to play in front of the hometown fans – for the first time.
