Daily Faceoff Live: How many players score 50 goals this season?

The 2021-22 season saw four players hit the 50-goal mark, including Auston Matthews’ 60 goal season, a couple usual suspects in Alex Ovechkin and Leon Draisaitl, and a surprise candidate in Chris Kreider.

As we approach the start of the 2022-23 season, Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuk talked about how many players we might see hit that 50-goal plateau this year.

Frank Seravalli: “It’s a small list. I’m going to say three. I’m going to go with Matthews, Draisaitl, [Kyle] Connor, and the guy knocking on the door is the other Connor in Connor McDavid. He hasn’t gotten to that 50-goal mark just yet, and he’s made it a point to try and score more goals, 44 being the career high last year. It still kind of amazes me that he didn’t win the Hart Trophy last year, and it’s not to say that Auston Matthews didn’t have a great year. I think we just became infatuated with the idea of 60 goals. He was outstanding, but we had the best player in the world, probably inarguably, score a career high in goals and a career high in points, and he doesn’t win the Hart. It was just an odd way that it ended, and then you see the dominance from McDavid in the postseason, and the point totals, and what he was able to accomplish. It feels like he’s going to that next level, and for him to break through with six more goals, he’s there. I think Kirill Kaprizov has a really good chance too, so four, maybe five.”

Tyler Yaremchuk: “You mention Kaprizov, you mention McDavid. I actually have them both hitting the mark, but I’m going with only four 50-goal scorers because I actually have Ovechkin missing out on it and Chris Kreider missing out on it as well. So I’m going with Matthews, Draisaitl, McDavid (so the Oilers will have two) and Kirill Kaprizov as my four 50-goal guys, with Kyle Connor probably being right on the doorstep.

If there’s one guy whose maybe not considered a conventional 50-goal guy, I’m intrigued about Jason Robertson. He needs to get into the lineup now. If he misses the first week or whatever of the season with a contract holdout, he’s probably not getting to 50 goals, but he’s a guy that if he gets all 82 games in, I’d be really curious to see if he can take a jump.

As we wrap this up, anyone lower down that a lot of people don’t talk about that you think has an upside shot at it?”

Seravalli: “[David] Pastrnak in a contract year I think is interesting, a guy that has gotten to 48 before, and contract years go one way or the other. Either the player wilts under the pressure of that or busts through the way that Johnny Gaudreau did last year.”