Auston Matthews Is the Only True Rookie to Score Four Goals in His NHL Debut
In a recent article about Auston Matthews' unforgettable four-goal NHL debut, I mentioned that he was only the fourth player in NHL history to score four or more goals in his first NHL game. That statement, while true, doesn't tell the whole story.
Three Men Beat Him to the Record: All on the Same Night!
Digging deeper into NHL history uncovered one of the league's most fascinating statistical oddities. The three players who accomplished the feat before Matthews didn't do it over decades of NHL history. They all did it on the very first night the NHL existed. On December 19, 1917, the newly formed four-team National Hockey League opened its inaugural season with just two games.
Joe Malone scored five goals as the Montreal Canadiens defeated the Ottawa Senators 7-4. In the other game, Harry Hyland matched Malone with five goals as the Montreal Wanderers edged the Toronto Arenas 10-9. Despite the loss, Toronto forward Reg Noble scored four goals of his own. Then... nothing.
Related: The Three Lives of Maple Leafs' Icon Howie Meeker.
For the next 99 years, no rookie had scored four goals in his first NHL game.
For the next 99 years and through tens of thousands of NHL games, no player matched the feat in an NHL debut until Matthews exploded for four goals against the Ottawa Senators in 2016. Why? The answer is surprisingly simple.
The NHL was barely hockey as we know it.
The NHL those three players entered in 1917 barely resembled the game Matthews stepped into nearly a century later. Goalies weren't allowed to drop to the ice to make saves. They couldn't freeze the puck and had very limited options when playing it. Players remained on the ice for the entire game unless they were injured. Forward passing wasn't permitted, making breakouts far more difficult and creating countless turnovers in the defensive zone.
The result was a game built almost entirely around offence. During the NHL's inaugural season, teams averaged approximately 9.5 goals per game — nearly double the scoring rate of today's NHL. As the league modernized its rules over the following years, scoring steadily declined, and four-goal debut performances disappeared with it.
There’s another piece to this story: the veteran rookies.
There's another important piece of this story. Although Malone, Hyland and Noble were technically NHL rookies, they weren't true professional rookies. All three had already played in the National Hockey Association (NHA), the major league that preceded the NHL. Malone and Hyland were seasoned veterans, while Noble already had a year of professional experience before the NHL was formed.
Matthews' situation was entirely different. When he stepped onto NHL ice on October 12, 2016, it was his first game in the world's best hockey league.
Why Matthews really stands alone as a rookie goal scorer.
That distinction makes his accomplishment even more remarkable. Officially, Auston Matthews is the fourth player in NHL history to score four or more goals in his debut. In reality, he remains the only true NHL rookie to accomplish the feat. Sometimes the record book tells only part of the story. The history behind it tells the rest.