Three Toronto players previously had five hat tricks in one season: Reg Noble (1917-18), Babe Dye (1924-25) and Darryl Sittler (1980-81).
There were chants of “MVP, MVP” from the stands and Matthews, who also had two assists and a career-best five points, has scored an NHL-best 48 goals this season. It was the second consecutive hat-trick for him.
– Playing here is a great honor. It’s not something any of us take for granted, says Matthews, who is the tenth player with at least six hat tricks in a season in NHL history with 29 games remaining in the regular season. The last to reach six hat tricks was Mario Lemieux in 1995-96.
Nylander with 500 points
– Of course it’s hard to put into words to be mentioned in the same context as him, so that’s all I can say, but it’s definitely pretty cool, says Matthews according to the NHL.
William Nylander scored one goal and assisted on two to reach 500 NHL points.
Toronto scored a hat trick for the third consecutive game, which no other team has done since Washington in 2009-10.
The match was played in front of 19,247 at Scotiabank Arena, which was fewer than when the women’s team set a record with 19,285 the day before.
“One hell of a match for 24 seconds”
There was another 9-2 game. Florida won the state derby against Tampa Bay by the same numbers, which was the eleventh consecutive away victory. This is approaching the record of twelve shared by Detroit (2005-06) and Minnesota (2014-15).
Tampa took the lead after just 24 seconds.
– For 24 seconds it was a hell of a game for our fans. “After that, the better team clearly won tonight,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said after the humiliating loss.