Connor McDavid Vs Auston Matthews: How Their Career Numbers Compare After A Decade In The NHL
One is the greatest playmaker of his generation. The other is the greatest goal scorer. A decade in, the numbers tell a fascinating story about two players who entered the NHL together and have defined it ever since.
Connor McDavid and Auston Matthews were both drafted first overall in consecutive years, 2015 and 2016 respectively, and have spent the decade since redefining what elite looks like in the NHL. They play different games, occupy different roles, and have built careers that complement rather than mirror each other. The comparison is unavoidable and entirely justified.
The Numbers Side by Side
McDavid enters the 2025-26 season with 395 goals, 783 assists and 1,178 points in 770 career regular-season games, a rate of 1.53 points per game that puts him in a category shared only by Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux in the modern era. His plus-minus of plus-179 reflects a career spent making everyone around him better. He has won four Hart Trophies, six Art Ross Trophies and the Conn Smythe in 2024 when Edmonton finally won the Stanley Cup. His assist totals in particular are extraordinary, with 758 career helpers giving him one of the most lopsided goal-to-assist ratios of any elite scorer in the sport's history.
Matthews sits at 427 goals, 348 assists and 775 points in 680 games, a rate of 1.14 points per game. The gap in points per game is real and significant, but the goal-scoring conversation is where Matthews holds his own. He has won the Rocket Richard Trophy four times, including a 69-goal season in 2023-24 that stood as the modern benchmark before McDavid matched it the following year. Matthews shoots at 16.2 percent career accuracy, higher than McDavid's 15.2 percent, and generates elite scoring chances at a rate no other centre in the league matches.
How the Argument Actually Breaks Down
McDavid is the better hockey player by almost every composite measure. His vision, skating and playmaking are generational in a way that Matthews' game, exceptional as it is, does not quite replicate. The Hart Trophy votes across the past decade reflect that consensus.
But Matthews is the better pure goal scorer, and in a sport where 20-goal seasons are celebrated and 50-goal seasons are rare, his ability to score 60-plus goals in multiple campaigns places him in a conversation with Gretzky, Lemieux and Brett Hull that McDavid's profile does not naturally enter. They are not the same player. That is the point. Ten years in, the NHL is fortunate to have both of them at the same time.