Auston Matthews Passes Leafs Legend in Important Record

It's pretty easy to say that the Maple Leafs have had some legendary names and faces pass through the organization throughout its 100-plus year history. From Johnny Bower to Mats Sundin to Auston Matthews; the list of Hall of Famers and icons stretch long and far.

With a history so long and vast, it's not hard to see that eventually, some records are going to be broken and some players are going to go from greats to legends; and for Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews, he's already basically cemented himself in the annals of the blue and white.

With his performance against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday night, the Maple Leafs captain ended up with his ninth-straight 30-goal season, which surpassed franchise icon Darryl Sittler for second all-time, trailing only Mats Sundin who had 10.

It's not the first time Matthews ended up breaking some records this season, as earlier he scored his 390th goal to pass Sittler for second all-time in goals scored in general, again only behind Sundin.

With the goal, it gave Matthews 71 points in 61 games this season (30G, 41A) and while it's not the most offensively dominant season as we've seen in previous years, Matthews has been used much more defensively and been more of a complete overall player as to a predominant goal-scorer.

Matthews has 398 career goals, which would only put him 22 behind Sundin in order to tie the record, and 23 to break it. It's certainly not the level of record chasing that Alexander Ovechkin is currently experiencing, but it is historic nonetheless; especially for such a storied franchise.

Unless he averages over his hat-trick, it will take Matthews next season in order to break Sundin's record, but there's no doubt he is going to at some point. We should all be excited to witness two historic events on back to back nights.