Auston Matthews reveals who he would have voted for had he not been in the Ted Lindsay race
Auston Matthews took home a lot of hardware this season, including the Hart Trophy, Ted Lindsay Award and his second consecutive Rocket Richard Trophy. While he didn't end up winning the one that mattered most, thanks to another first round exit at the hands of the Tampa Bay Lightning, it's still difficult to view this season as anything other than a resounding success for Matthews as an individual.
The Ted Lindsay Award (formerly the Lester B. Pearson Award) is given out each season to the player who is voted the league's most outstanding player by his peers. As they say, greatness recognizes greatness - and Auston Matthews never has a hard time voting for the Ted Lindsay. According to this year's recipient, he simply always just pencils in Connor McDavid's name because of the enormous amount of respect he has for him as a player.
-Auston Matthews on who the perennial Ted Lindsay winner is in his eyes
While McDavid had an outstanding season in his own right, scoring a career high 44 goals, 79 assists and 123 points, en route to his 4th career Art Ross Trophy, what Matthews did this season in just 73 games was nothing short of mind boggling.
Matthews managed to do something that hasn't been done in a decade, scoring 60 goals, accomplishing the feat in 9 less games than the last man to do it, Steven Stamkos. Matthews also became the first player since Mario Lemieux in the 90's to score 50 goals in a 50-game span.
I'm sure if you asked McDavid point blank who deserved the Ted Lindsay, he'd tell you Auston Matthews deserved it. We're extremely lucky to be witnessing two players of Matthews' and McDavid's caliber playing at the same time and drafted just 1 year apart. They both still have so much hockey left to play and there's no doubt in my mind that we're likely to see one or both of them in just about every Ted Lindsay vote for at least the next 5-7 years and possibly longer.
Gretzky had Lemieux. Crosby had Ovechkin. And now, McDavid has Matthews.
